Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Why ask why?
I feel sorry for financial reporters, as they are charged with this "market is up/down on ____" story every single day.
Yesterday, a Bloomberg story said the stock market was up on optimism about the election. Today it is down "on concern Obama will struggle to reverse slowing economy". In either case, I very much doubt the headline reflected the consensus of a significant sample. It is safe to say either candidate would struggle to reverse the slowing economy and today we have only a few more nuggets of employment and mortgage application indicators.
3 Comments:
By 
Purple Avenger, at
Wed Nov 05, 09:12:00 PM:
Anticipation of doom is almost always worse than the actual doom.
By 
, at
Wed Nov 05, 09:18:00 PM:
My pet theory:
Watching the markets and the polls over the last 4 months, at a distance not scientifically, what I noticed was this:
When McCain went up in the polls the market went up. When Obama went up in the polls the Market went down.
Yesterday and today fit that pattern.
Election day saw McCain up and exuding confidence (no doubt to protect down ticket races and no doubt because he practices what he preaches when he says "don't give up the fight"). There was a hope in the air that McCain just might pull an upset.
Today the markets have their answer to the political question. It's Obama after all. Markets down.
Let's face it. There is nothing in Obama's kit of tax increases, income redistribution and protectionism that has any real chance of helping the economy.
By , at
Thu Nov 06, 11:01:00 AM:
This morning I watched Democrat financial people speculating what "tax reform" Obama might actually implement. After going back and forth the prevailing sentiment seemed to settle on what one commenter described as "leaving the "rich" as majority shareholders in their own paychecks". So, we're talking about a top marginal rate of approximately 49%. That'll take more than a few buyers out of the stock market!
