Wall Street and its scoreboard stock exchanges are jubilant with the 0.5% cut in the prime rate. But all is not well. As expected, gold and oil hit record highs on the news yesterday and the sky's the limit. The dollar will be losing value and foreign investors will be buying increasing amounts of our equities, including land, buildings, public and private companies. Expect American ownership to decrease.
The fact that the Federal Reserve sought to pacify investment bankers and individuals who made bad deals in an effort to shore up what was starting to look like big trouble in the "heartland" is not, I think, worthy of celebration. Yes, we should be grateful that Ben Bernanke and crew are keeping a watchful eye on the pulse of the economy and did not wait until we drowned to throw in a lifeline. But for this conservative group to make the cut they had to think things were bad, and that is not exactly heartening news.
Transportation stocks are not doing well this morning, and neither are delivery companies. FedEx Corp (NYSE: FDX) and United Parcel Service (NYSE: UPS) are showing losses or treading water, even though the overall market is notably up. Why? Fuel costs.
Closing Bell: Can't go up every day (BAC, HE, HPW, COMS, BRCD, WMT, AMD)
Wal-Mart grows profit and cash flow in Q3, but comps still ailing
Chasing Value: Ten stocks for 2010 -- Part 2
