well are you guy's ready for the dow to top 10,000

[okieinpain]

you know you will be hearing about it for the next 10 months.

[DBoon]

1. And if it then drops?

Will we hear about that too?

[La_Serpiente]

2. Is the Stock Market a good indicator of where the economy is going?

???

[Hippo_Tron]

43. Yes and no...

Stock market being high is good for people who have invested money in it. However if a company lays off half of their workers then their stock goes up because they've cut expenses meaning that they have more money. Unfrotunately, people don't know the difference between a good stock market and a good economy.

[sexybomber]

48. "If there was an index that encompassed more than 30 companies,"

then maybe. The Dow is only a handful of really big corporations. If there was a larger index, maybe 100 or 200 widely varied companies, then yes, it might be a decent indicator.

[Yupster]

49. That's why they have the

S+P 500. It started this year at about 902. Now it's at 1070, for about a 19 % gain.

[SonofMass]

52. Watch out.

Too many facts here.

[evil_orange_cat]

3. lol... it will be funny...

if Bush even gets us close to where we were under CLinton's admin... I can see the campaign slogans now...

Vote BUSH: He messed up and then got us back to square one!!!

[Randi_Listener]

4. Dow Jones != economy

n/t

[tritsofme]

11. Not hardly,

The stock market is one of many indicators, but it is far from representative of the entire economy.

[4farmgun]

17. What than

is the indicator(s) you would like to use. The stock market is precisley the strength of the economy. I cant think of other measures you would use

[catzies]

22. Wall Street isn't Main Street. The DJIA is not the economy.

Wall Street is a casino, run by the gamblers for the gamblers, and the House Always Wins.

[sendero]

23. No...

... it is not and nobody who knows economics thinks it is.

[Randi_Listener]

27. There are many economic indicators.

The Dow Jones is a representation of a relatively small number of stocks. There are productivity numbers, manufacturing output, unemployment numbers, inflation, new home starts, and a host of others. Do your homework.

[4farmgun]

36. Lets start from with new home starts

All of that material has to be manufactured marketed and delivered,most of those companies are on the board. Infalation being low means companies on the board can carry inventory at low cost. Manufacturing output and productivity are the direct drivers of profitability and employment always follows profit. thus the market is the economy. I could always be wrong and maybe you can cite an 18 month period where the factors you use are at odds with the market

[Gulf Coast J]

51. The '!' means 'is not equal to'

So the earlier poster was saying the Dow Jones is not equal to the overall economy.

[StClone]

13. Something like TV

Represents reality?

[Frodo]

15. Do you do coding? Or is this common usage?

I haven't seen "!=" as "not equal" till I started working in Macromedia.

I don't intend to look like an idiot... I've had my fair share of math courses (Physics major)... did I miss something?

[cosmicaug]

21. Javascript

I haven't seen "!=" as "not equal" till I started working in Macromedia.

I don't intend to look like an idiot... I've had my fair share of math courses (Physics major)... did I miss something?

I don't know anything about Macromedia, but you'll also see "!=" used in Javascript.

[sendero]

26. I think...

... it originated with C. It is used in C and C++. C was written in the late 60s I believe.

[Randi_Listener]

31. It's common....

...in many programming languages. The first place I saw it's use was in C++.

[JNelson6563]

37. DOW=30 companies

hardly representative.

[Randi_Listener]

45. Exactly.

To cite the DOW as the benchmark for the economy is intellectually dishonest. Only 'tards put stock in those stocks.

[eleny]

5. Only if good jobs also increase in large numbers

Not just the seasonal sales positions but solid jobs with good health benefits. If corporate profits are wonderful because of cheap labor abroad, it won't help the unemployed here in the U.S.

But it sure will look good in the news, huh?

[patdem]

6. How come when the stock market was over 10,000 before everyone was rich

now...people's stocks go from 15,562 to 22,386...where have all those stock market millionars gone??? Someone has sucked the money from Secretaries with million dollar portfolios to where????

[Yupster]

40. Patdem

If you own 1,000 shares of a tech stock and you bought it for $ 10 a share and it's now worth $ 400 a share, you've made $ 390,000. If it splits and then goes back up to $ 400 a share, you now have $ 800,000.

Now, if it turns out that the company never had any value and was just part of the tech bubble, and the company goes bankrupt, what happened to your $ 800,000?

No one stole it from you. It was never there.

IF you had sold it the day it was worth $ 800,000, and if there was someone willing to buy it at that price, then you'd have the money. While you're holding the shares, you can put a value on it saying the last time it traded, it was for X dollars a share, but until it's sold it has no value.

It's the same as a home. You buy a home for 100k and it goes up to 200k. You've made 100k. Then a sewage treatment plant moves in next stre and your home value goes back down to 100k. Who stole your 100k? No one. It was only worth that if you could sell it for that much that day. The next day the price could be betterer or worsier.

[SahaleArm]

7. The Dow could hit 11k by next year with no jobs added.

Democrats need to stress economic growth is tied to job growth not market growth.

[Skittles]

8. as long as the thieving Bush INC is running the country

no way will I participate like I did when Clinton was president. I don't trust this bunch one bit and can easily see a major stock market crash, just like Dubya's daddy had.

[tritsofme]

14. Well then you missed out

on some great gains since April.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

16. The gains are part of another bubble...

...one that is due to pop in about six months, give or take a month or two. Why get in on such "great gains" now, only to have them disappear as they have in the recent past?

[tritsofme]

19. People have been saying this is a bubble for the past 6 months,

I wouldnt buy anything now, but since April my porfolio is up 45%.

I think the Dow will stay around 10,000 give or take a few hundred points for quite a while, because I agree if we advance much further we will enter bubble territory.

[SahaleArm]

28. The Nasdaq is already in bubble territory w/ forward PE's > 40 *nm*

*nm*

[Skittles]

24. I made much more secure gains

I will NEVER trust these thieving assholes - NEVER

[Frodo]

9. "You'll hear about it for the next ten months"

Because it's going to cross 10,000 eight times between now and then (four in each direction).

[okieinpain]

10. you're probably right, but you'll only hear about the up ones.

[GregW]

12. My stock options have more than doubled in price

In the past 18 months.

Yeah, baby!

[Media_Lies_Daily]

18. That's wonderful for you. Nice of you to rub it in the faces of those...

...less fortunate than you.

[junker]

20. Wanna know why? It ain't good news baby, it's cause the buck flopped.

How do I know?

Well, here is a simple test. Put the DOW or any market index into the South African Rand or other resource backed currency like the Canadian Loonie....


then you see that this WHOLE YEAR'S STOCK MARKET GAIN IN THE DOW or the NASDAQ merely reflect the failing dollar.


So dollar is down so your 'price' is up.


Sorry to put it this way, but big damn deal....you are still losing on dollar denominated paper assets.

[junker]

30. So what? 10000 times zero is still zero. NO DOW GAIN THIS YEAR!

Put the DOW action into the SA Rand or Canadian currency, and there has been no gain this year. THis means that all the numeric gains this year reflect the degradtion of the buck over this year. .....

[creativelcro]

29. mine quadrupled!

[ieoeja]

32. And where do you stand vs 2000?

If your stock went down 50% since Bush Baby took office then doubled in the last 18 months, you would be even. Since at 10000 the DOW isn't even close to breaking even under Bush Baby -- and that is without including inflation, etc -- you would be way ahead of the average.

[creativelcro]

25. new bubble forming...

[Maine-i-acs]

33. It's Jobs Jobs Jobs!

So what if the Dow is where it was in 1998. Unemployment's high and underemployment's an 800-pound gorilla nobody in Washington wants to talk about.

[William Seger]

34. It's because of tax cuts for the rich

Tax cuts for the middle class would have fired up the economy, because almost all the money would have been spent on goods and services. Bush's* tax cuts for the rich are mainly just getting pumped into stock market speculation, driving up prices while the actual value of the equity is not really increasing. In "normal" times, the stock market is one "indicator" of the economy, these aren't normal times. Even with money pouring into Wall Street accounts, businesses aren't expanding because their markets simply aren't expanding, and anyone who really believed that tax cuts for the rich would do that is a fool.

[Yupster]

35. As a stckbroker,

I am more than ready.

BTW - I have two job offers right now, and I think I've decided to take one.

This will mean shutting down my small franchise and going to work for a big company. It's quite a risk, and I'm uncertain, because I'm giving up an awfully nice secure income for a new start. Hope I've thought this through correctly.

[info being]

38. It's only because of the declining value of the dollar

Think about it...if someone invests in an American company in Euros, the stock price can rise in dollars and stay flat in Euros. In other words, the gains aren't real.

[William Seger]

42. Usually, a falling dollar has the opposite effect

"...the stock price can rise in dollars and stay flat in Euros."

So what's the incentive for foreign investors? In the past, anyway, a declining dollar meant that foreign investors would pull money out of the US stock market, which would drive the market down, not up.

[JNelson6563]

39. Who owns "the market"?

According to Greg Palast, in The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, out of a worth (at the time of his writing) of $3.5 trillion in stocks and bonds out there, the top 1% owns $2.9 trillion worth.

Just an FYI.

Julie

[blm]

41. No doubt. They'll manufacture the appearance of a successful presidency

for Bush, until he's in. Then they'll complete their takeover for the capitalists.

[Terwilliger]

44. Counter with "I believe Clinton pushed it over 10,000 5 years ago"

fuck those stupid repukes

[arewethereyet]

46. the dot com boom pushed it over, Clinton had nothing to do with it

and the dot com bust took it all away and Clinton DID help that a little bit because he, like the rest of us ignored Greenspan's warnings.

[ComerPerro]

47. Here's the thing about the stock market

Fuck it, its not an economic indicator.

Consider this:

Bush really fucks up, wrecks everyones confidence. People lose their jobs, corporate profits drop, the market takes a dive.
Then Bush repeatedly passes tax cuts that target the wealthy and promises to eliminate the estate tax and eliminate "double taxation" of stock dividends.

Translation: Here is a ton of free money that you can use to get income that can't be taxed, and you can pass it to your children tax free.

The people getting the tax cuts didn't really need them in the first place, since they never see negative effects of a lousy economy. They had money to risk anyway, but now the administration is giving them money to play with and promises to cut taxes even further. Add to that the fact that stocks are going for rock bottom prices, and of course the wealthy are going to buy up the market.
Naturally, the sale of stocks increases their value. So, the rich are allowed to buy up the market for pennies on the dollar, only to sell them to poor saps like us if we decide we might want to be able to retire someday.

But, companies still aren't hiring the way they need to be. And no amount of corporate welfare in the world can change that. Why would anyone imagine that a CEO who makes five million a year while laying off thousands of people wouldn't just take the government money and increase their own salary???

[opihimoimoi]

50. It should be about 14,000 by now. The shrub came in and fucked it

all to hell. everyone knows that cept the pub sheep who are brain dead

[BurtWorm]

53. Been there. Done that.

Of course the media will be reporting like this is brand new territory!