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It seems like it happened years ago, but it's been only about a month since Wall Street had its huge, post-plummet surge. Touting it as the biggest one-day point gain in the history of the market, newspapers around the country featured pictures of financial industry professionals grinning and bouncing, hugging each other like it was V-J day and they were all unwed nurses wearing fresh lipstick. In The New York Daily News, the stock market dancing monkey du Jour was a red-headed guy with a close-cropped hairdo, extravagant sideburns, and the standard blue trader's jacket. In picture after picture, the paper featured him leering, giving a thumbs-up, and hugging a burly fellow trader who was a dead-ringer for actor Michael Lerner.
At the time, I heaped scorn upon the head of the poor unknown trader, mocking his excessive enthusiasm, mildly frightening grin, and overall air of mindless faith in the system. Being something of a cynic, I knew that today's high would be almost matched by tomorrow's low, which would be followed by another dizzying high, and so on as the market tried to find equilibrium. I saw the redheaded trader's excessive enthusiasm as indicative of the kind of cocksure investing that got us into this mess in the first place.
About a week ago, as stocks fell for the third straight day, the Daily News ran a picture of a trader resting his head on a twisted hand as he stared down into his recorder. It was a painful, almost baroque image of misery. Looking closely, I noticed that the young trader holding his close-cropped red head was wearing the number "804." As I flipped back through the earlier Daily News article, I found that the other trader, the one I had mocked, also sported the number 804.
Other news outlets decided to go with an assortment of traders making sad faces and grimacing; the Columbus Dispatch, for example, featured 804's expressive sidekick wearing a look of dark concern. However, the Daily News stuck with its cover boy, a man whose energetic expressions of sadness and elation would make Charlie Chaplin pale with envy.
This, by the way, was the day in which Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson announced that TARP, his much-touted troubled asset relief plan wasn't, in fact, going to buy troubled assets. Coupled with grim forecasts for holiday spending and Circuit City (NYSE: CC)'s decision to file for bankruptcy, it hardly seems surprising that the market wasn't able to marshal any false optimism.
Thinking about that day, I've decided to stop making fun of #804. While his expressions of joy and misery seem a little outsized, I can certainly understand where they're coming from. Like him, I'm feeling my spirits soar and crash with each barely comprehensible move undertaken by the Federal Government. Just when we get used to one plan, another one seems to take its place, and just when one solution begins to take effect, it is replaced with something different. Some industries are saved, others are left out to dry, and the rationale underlying the choices is completely unclear. Watching poor little trader #804's moodswings, I can't help but relate: it feels like the market is being manipulated by a mercurial and illogical master.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-17-2008 @ 5:32PM
BHarrison said...
Since the market crash, and the release of the general assessment of the "derivative disaster", I have not had an optimistic moment. It's all too obvious what was going to happen, sharp drops and then rises in the market, repeating the cycle over and over; but progressively declining.
The obvious "truth and reality" is that as long as the CORRUPT CEOs and upper management that orchestrated the pyramid and Ponzi schemes remained in control of the corporations and markets, there could be no faith and confidence in the corporations and markets . . . the American people cannot have confidence in any of this with the CORRUPTORS still in charge. It is an insult to the intelligence of the average investor; they are not going to go back to be DUPED AGAIN by these predatory capitalists.
"Recovery" can only be based on restoring integrity to the market (and prohibiting computer timed transactions which are one of the biggest reasons for these extreme swings in the market.)
11-17-2008 @ 10:51PM
Mike Sanders said...
The stock market is suffering from a severe case of Bipolar-financial Disorder, or BFD, if you will. Prescribing stimulants, without a mood-stabilizer, will result in a temporary elevation of mood, only to be followed by a subsequent "crash" into depression. If this goes on, the depression could very well become a psychotic depression and even stronger drugs (regulatory measures), will become necessary. Sure, some will escape with some very nice highs (high sells), but overall, the majority of investors would benefit most from a reasonable stabilizing action (regulation: outlaw exotic derivatives, curb short-selling, increases margin requirements, no opaque areas of concern, no more mortgage-backed secuities (homes are to live in, not to be used as an ATM, or like trading cards)... On and on, as far as common-sense would dictate. Negelect this warning and we shall surely find out what socialism, even Turbo-socialism is all about, and it's a very nasty, self-defeating and limiting environment under which to exist.
11-17-2008 @ 10:54PM
Mike Sanders said...
The stock market is suffering from a severe case of Bipolar-financial Disorder, or BFD, if you will. Prescribing stimulants, without a mood-stabilizer, will result in a temporary elevation of mood, only to be followed by a subsequent "crash" into depression. If this goes on, the depression could very well become a psychotic depression and even stronger drugs (regulatory measures), will become necessary. Sure, some will escape with some very nice highs (high sells), but overall, the majority of investors would benefit most from a reasonable stabilizing action (regulation: outlaw exotic derivatives, curb short-selling, increases margin requirements, no opaque areas of concern, no more mortgage-backed secuities (homes are to live in, not to be used as an ATM, or like trading cards)... On and on, as far as common-sense would dictate. Negelect this warning and we shall surely find out what socialism, even Turbo-socialism is all about, and it's a very nasty, self-defeating and limiting environment under which to exist.