Investor fear remains deep despite 1-day rally

[girl gone mad]

NEW YORK (AP) — Since the Nov. 4 election, investors have been abandoning stocks in a kind of slow-motion crash that experts say underlines just how anxious they are about what is likely to be a long and deep recession.

Even after a late-day rally on Friday, the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 index has plunged 20 percent since the election. That more than wiped out the index's 18 percent gain in the six trading days ahead of the balloting as optimism grew that Barack Obama would be elected president.

Analysts aren't blaming Obama specifically for the postelection hangover. Rather, they peg it to growing fears that the Bush Administration and Congress are fumbling the $700 billion bailout plan and the weakened economy's impact on financial stocks — highlighted by the plunge in shares of Citigroup Inc. to below $4 a share.

"You can almost hear people yelling, 'Get me out at any price,' " said Al Goodman, chief market strategist at Wachovia Securities. "It's the highest level of fear and depression in my 45 years as a student of the market."

(snip)

"Individual investors have remained pretty cool throughout most of this downturn .... but I am starting to hear from clients saying basically, 'We're already down this much. Should we throw in the towel' " and sell everything?

"Most of them are in good shape, but the erosion of dollars and cents does impact their psychology," he said.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g05fZeAlidvfyIJEbvbtHM7-HTCAD94KADSG0

[Trajan]

1. Someone needs to tell the RW media idiots ....

The current troubles are deeply systemic, and will not be resolved easily ...

Expect wild volatility with a general downward trend to remain the norm ...

[Sarah Ibarruri]

2. After this whole frikkin' mess I have only 2 opinions on this financial disaster:

1) The whole free market ideology that says it levels itself out is clearly bullshit;
2) The stock market has finally revealed itself for what it is: a place where a bunch of rich men and their lackeys get to tear the world apart anytime they're going through some really screwed up PMS-crying-loss-of-confidence moments.

Really, folks, there has got to be a better way. This way has sunk us before, it sank us again, and how many more times are we going to keep at it? It's like someone who keeps banging his head and complaining it hurts.

[ixion]

3. "Analysts aren't blaming Obama specifically for the postelection hangover."

Ya know, given that we've been in recession for over a year now, that sentence is patently ridiculous.

And given that the crisis is the result of years of rethug fraud -- a.k.a. deregulation -- I think it's time pundits were held to the fire, since they helped create the path we're now being forced to walk.

Ludicrous statements like that should be rebutted with extreme prejudice.