Today has not been any better...
http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/10/markets/markets_newyork/index.htm?postversion=2008101011
Stocks plunge again
Dow down 350 points, after tumbling almost 700 points in the first minutes of trade.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Stocks tumbled Friday morning in volatile trade - the Dow erased most of its nearly 700-point loss at the open, only to turn lower again as the credit crisis intensified.
Credit markets remained tight, although short-term lending showed some improvement from recent days. Treasury prices fell, raising the corresponding yields. The dollar gained versus the euro and the yen. Oil and gas fell. Gold prices rose.
The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) lost 370 points or 4.4% around two hours into the session. Within the first five minutes of trade, the Dow had plunged 697 points, falling below 7900 to its lowest level since March 17, 2003.
The Standard & Poor's 500 (SPX) index lost 4.9% and the Nasdaq composite (COMP) lost 3.9%. Both major gauges had tumbled along with the Dow at the open.
Markets tanked Thursday, extending the Dow's losses over the last seven sessions to 2,271 points, or 20%, as panicked investors ditched stocks across the board.
That panic spread to global markets Friday, with the Japanese Nikkei tumbling 9.6% and European markets falling in afternoon trading. The global selloff kept the pressure on U.S. markets Friday.
"Fear is feeding upon itself and nothing the officials have done to this point seems to stem the tide," said Ryan Atkinson, market analyst at Balestra Capital.
A key measure of investor fear hit an all-time high: The CBOE Volatility (VIX) index, or the VIX, hit nearly 71 Friday morning.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
