Correct Mike. 25 basis points isn't much. This will be the 12th cut if it happens. If the other 11 cuts didn't do it, it's unlikely one more will be the magic one. What IS important is what it will tell us about the state of the economy. Al and his boys have access to ALL the economic data there is available. If Al and the gang decide another cut is needed this would be a pretty ominous sign. If they hold steady, then contrariwise it would make me (and the markets) feel a lot better.

Originally Posted by Robert

Correct Mike. 25 basis points isn't much. This will be the 12th cut if it happens. If the other 11 cuts didn't do it, it's unlikely one more will be the magic one. What IS important is what it will tell us about the state of the economy. Al and his boys have access to ALL the economic data there is available. If Al and the gang decide another cut is needed this would be a pretty ominous sign. If they hold steady, then contrariwise it would make me (and the markets) feel a lot better.

50 points! I didn't expect that. I hope it doesn't tank the market. We'll probably see tomorrow.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Originally Posted by Robert

Correct Mike. 25 basis points isn't much. This will be the 12th cut if it happens. If the other 11 cuts didn't do it, it's unlikely one more will be the magic one. What IS important is what it will tell us about the state of the economy. Al and his boys have access to ALL the economic data there is available. If Al and the gang decide another cut is needed this would be a pretty ominous sign. If they hold steady, then contrariwise it would make me (and the markets) feel a lot better.

50 points! I didn't expect that. I hope it doesn't tank the market. We'll probably see tomorrow.

Guess I should refinance my house again. I'm currently paying 7.125 percent.

Originally Posted by The Wonk

Guess I should refinance my house again. I'm currently paying 7.125 percent.

Except that mortgages follow their own supply and demand, not very related to the FED funds rate. They've been going up for the past couple months; if you didn't get in by now, you may have missed out on the "lost our shirt on the stock market, moving into real estate" binge.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Originally Posted by The Wonk

Guess I should refinance my house again. I'm currently paying 7.125 percent.

Except that mortgages follow their own supply and demand, not very related to the FED funds rate. They've been going up for the past couple months; if you didn't get in by now, you may have missed out on the "lost our shirt on the stock market, moving into real estate" binge.

Right now, there is so much liquidity in the market that you might very well see another drop in rates. If so, I think I'll join Jenny, and get me some cheap money.

What does it all mean? Greenspan dropped rates by more than 25 basis points and the Republicans won heavy. I think what it means is the economy is still in bad and worsening shape. Sort of like a rocket with a bad case of Fallback (Fallback is when a rocket lifts a few feet off the pad and then loses thrust and falls back on its tail and explodes). Al is trying to throttle up to keep the economy from falling back into recession.

On the other hand, the electorate seems to be more focused on international issues than the economy. The Republican victory was a mandate for war on Iraq. I suppose the economy and unemployment aren't bad enough yet to worry voters. If so the Democrats would have done better, the electorate always swings left in an economic crisis.

Whatever happens, neither lower interest rates or victory over Saddam Hussein will have the slightest affect on the health of the economy. It will get better or worse on its own internal logic, not anything Government does to try and make it well.

Compare to article I posted on page 25, about "Productivity":




Workers' Productivity Climbed 4% in the Third Quarter
By DANIEL ALTMAN New York Times

Productivity, the amount of goods and services Americans produced in each hour they worked, grew unusually rapidly in the third quarter of this year, the Labor Department reported today.

Compared with the second quarter, workers' productivity rose by an annual rate of 4 percent in businesses outside the farming sector, while the number of hours that people worked changed little.

Originally Posted by Marc Lamb

Compare to article I posted on page 25, about "Productivity":

Workers' Productivity Climbed 4% in the Third Quarter
By DANIEL ALTMAN New York Times

Productivity, the amount of goods and services Americans produced in each hour they worked, grew unusually rapidly in the third quarter of this year, the Labor Department reported today.

Compared with the second quarter, workers' productivity rose by an annual rate of 4 percent in businesses outside the farming sector, while the number of hours that people worked changed little.

I'll be ineterested to see who gets the financial benefit of this increase. I'm NOT betting on the lowly worker ... or the mid-tier worker ... or even middle managers. $6,000 shower cutrains are back on the table!

The productivity increases are due to all the layoffs. You cut your work force and work the remaining employees all that much harder to keep up. Productivity soars but the problem with that is it causes worker burnout. The exact same thing happened 10 years ago in the last recession.

Mike, I know you think that the 4T began with the NASDAQ declining in March 2000. I don't think that, but since you do, I think that a certain week in April 2000 works better. First of all, keep in mind that the DJIA began declining late in the summer of 1929 but 4T didn't start until October. Now:

4/10/2000: -5.8%
4/12/2000: -7.1%
4/14/2000: -9.7%

4/10/2000 - 4/14/2000: -19.5%

There's your crash.

Originally Posted by AlexMnWi

Mike, I know you think that the 4T began with the NASDAQ declining in March 2000. I don't think that, but since you do, I think that a certain week in April 2000 works better. First of all, keep in mind that the DJIA began declining late in the summer of 1929 but 4T didn't start until October. Now:

4/10/2000: -5.8%
4/12/2000: -7.1%
4/14/2000: -9.7%

4/10/2000 - 4/14/2000: -19.5%

There's your crash.

There really wasn't a crash this time. I see the S&P500 peak (on a monthly average basis) in August 2000 equivalent to the Dow peak in September 1929. From an economic standpoint the beginning of the recession in March 2001 is equivalent to the beginning of the recession in August 1929. From a monetary standpoint the end of 2000 is roughly equivalent to early fall 1929. If I average these three measures I get December 2000 as the economic/financial-based estimate for the start of the crisis.

But with 911 just 9 months later, I am content to call that the official start since it was a dramatic event which launched a war. As a rule, the economic/financial turning point is usually not exactly aligned with the turning change.

Standard fair use disclaimers apply:

DISLODGING THE FED FANTASY
by Robert J. Samuelson, WASHINGTON POST
Wednesday, November 6, 2002 (page A21)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2002Nov5.html

One of the absurd ideas that took hold in the late 1990s was that the Federal
Reserve, presided over by the almost-infallible Alan Greenspan, had
essentially conquered the business cycle. The Fed could (the reasoning went)
maneuver the economy with deft changes in interest rates to avoid the twin
evils of inflation and recession.

Along with the extravagant belief in the Internet and computers, the faith in
the Fed underpinned the period's enormous economic optimism. We know now that
the optimism was overdone, though explanations for this vary.

The most popular theory is that Greenspan goofed. With hindsight, his
reputation exceeded his performance. He gushed too much about the potential
of new technologies and, thereby, fed stock speculation. He and the Fed also
moved too slowly to pop the stock market bubble. The theory is convenient,
because it suggests that pilot error caused many of the economy's present
problems.

It's also wrong. All economic expansions ultimately end, because
miscalculations occur and the future cannot be foretold. The irony of our
present situation is that belief in Greenspan's infallibility helped cause,
and then end, the boom. Believing the business cycle conquered, people -- as
consumers, managers and investors -- began spending freely and sometimes
frivolously.

This couldn't continue indefinitely. It didn't.

Of course, Greenspan isn't above criticism. He has gushed too much about
technology. But suppose he hadn't said a word. It's doubtful that the stock
market would have behaved much differently. His speeches didn't cause the
mania, which was fed by the press, cyber "experts," CEOs, stock analysts and
average Americans who -- playing with the Internet, cell phones and Palm
Pilots -- envisioned a glorious future. Why not invest in stocks of the
future?

The other criticism is that, if the Fed had popped the market bubble, the
economy wouldn't have suffered adverse aftereffects. The market boom affected
production and jobs. High stock prices meant companies could raise investment
capital easily. The ferocious investment boom by dot-coms and telecoms
followed. Consumers went on a spending binge, based in part on their bulging
stock portfolios. The Fed (it's said) could have minimized or prevented these
excesses.

In a speech in August, Greenspan replied to critics. Except in retrospect, he
said, the Fed couldn't have identified the market bubble. Critics regard this
claim as, at best, insincere. On several occasions, Greenspan himself
suggested the possibility of a bubble.

But it's one thing to suspect that the market has gone berserk and another to
be certain enough to take action. Did the bubble arrive when the Dow hit
8,500? How about 9,247? Or maybe 10,003? The answer still isn't clear.

Even if it had been, Greenspan said, the Fed couldn't have popped the bubble
painlessly. Trying to bring the market down through higher interest rates
might have triggered a recession. Commentators found the speech glib and
self-serving. It was a public-relations disaster and intensified the
criticism of Greenspan.

But he is mostly right. The critics don't cite precedents when the Fed -- or
any other central bank -- has painlessly popped speculative bubbles, because
there may not be any. In a recent speech, Ben Bernanke, a Princeton economist
now on the Federal Reserve Board, recalled the one instance when the Fed did
attack stock speculation: the late 1920s. It is not a happy precedent.

In January 1928, the discount rate was 3.5 percent; by August 1929, it was 6
percent, the highest level since 1921. The stock market peaked in September
and crashed in October. The Great Depression of the 1930s ensued. (To be
fair, the market crash, though it started the Depression, didn't cause its
length or severity.)

Wait a minute, say critics. The Fed could have squelched speculation without
wrecking the economy. All it had to do was raise "margin" requirements.
Margin requirements govern how much stock people can buy with borrowed money.
The present requirements, dating to 1974, are 50 percent: Half of any stock
purchase can be made with cash, half with credit. Requiring more cash and
less credit would have (the theory goes) stifled speculative borrowing.
Sounds simple.

The trouble is that borrowing wasn't a big force behind the market's
stupendous rise. At the market's peak in March 2000, all stocks were worth
about $17 trillion. Margin borrowing then (also the peak) was about $280
billion -- less than 2 percent of the market's value. The point, made by both
Greenspan and Bernanke, is that once a true speculative boom gets going it
can't be stopped gently.

There are larger lessons. All the criticisms of Greenspan suggest, either
explicitly or implicitly, that had he and the Fed performed better, they
could have kept the economy out of trouble. Even now, the faith remains
strong that the Fed can rescue the economy from its present difficulties.
(Indeed, the Fed's key policymaking group meets today and may cut interest
rates.) Perhaps these hopes will be fulfilled, but there's no guarantee.

In truth, the Fed influences the economy mainly through one small instrument:
the Fed Funds rate. This is the interest rate on overnight loans, mainly
among banks. Almost everything else is outside the Fed's direct control:
long-term interest rates (on mortgages, for instance), which are influenced
by inflationary expectations; the state of the world economy; public
confidence; managerial competence; government regulations. The list is almost
endless.

To suppose that the Fed can steer the economy is a fantasy -- pleasing but
wrong. It is now being dislodged, slowly and painfully, from public
consciousness.

More on how we got into the 4T financial situation. Standard fair use disclaimers apply:

IN A BUBBLE ECONOMY, RECOGNITION COMES TOO LATE
In Their Euphoria, Key Players Looked Away

by Steven Pearlstein, WASHINGTON POST, Sunday 11/10/2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2002Nov9.html

Mention the Bubble Economy and, for many Americans, it now conjures up images
of shredded documents and half-built Houston mansions, depleted pension
accounts and executives being led off in handcuffs. But it didn't start out
that way.

Roughly from 1995 through the end of 2000, the Bubble Economy was known as
the new economy, and nearly everyone thought it was a marvelous thing.

Billions of dollars poured in from all over the world from people hoping to
get in on the ground floor of the Internet, a medium that held the promise of
transforming not only the economy, but life as we knew it. Stock prices rose
higher and faster than at any time in history, making the ups and downs of
the Nasdaq Stock Market a national obsession.

Now, of course, we know it wasn't all real, and it certainly wasn't enduring.
Twenty months after it tipped into recession, the economy is barely growing.
Stock prices are back where they were four or five years ago. And nobody is
sure how much of the revenue and profit growth during the bubble was real.

How could this have happened? Why did otherwise honest people resort to
obfuscation, game-playing and outright fraud just to keep going? Where were
the safeguards that were supposed to warn against the dangers and prevent the
excesses?

This week, The Post will explore these questions in a series of stories that
focuses on six individuals and companies at the center of the Bubble Economy.
The theme running through all of them is that many of the key people involved
in the economy got so caught up in the euphoria, so blinded by the financial
rewards dangled in front of them, that they stopped doing their jobs -- or
convinced themselves that the nature of their jobs had changed.

First and foremost were the corporate executives, the subject of today's
installment, who began to focus more on managing their stock prices than
managing their businesses. They were encouraged by pension and mutual fund
managers who shed their roles as patient custodians of capital to make it big
in the quarterly rankings game. And they were egged on by a money culture
that lionized CEOs who could reliably deliver quarter after quarter of
double-digit earnings growth.

The list of culprits hardly ends there. Near the front of the line were the
corporate directors who grew so comfortable with the pay, perks and status
that the bull market had conferred on them that they became even more
quiescent than they had been before.

There were the accountants who set their sights on becoming strategic
partners and advisers to the executives whose books they were auditing,
forsaking their traditional role as nitpicky eyeshades hired to look out for
the interest of shareholders.

And it was during this period that stock analysts began to think and act like
investment bankers, investment bankers like venture capitalists and venture
capitalists like masters of the financial universe. "In all the euphoria of
the bubble, the gatekeepers were so unwanted that even they began to see
their roles as redundant," said John C. Coffee Jr., a corporate law expert at
Columbia Law School. "They were paid handsomely to look the other way -- and
many did."

A bit harder to explain is the acquiescence of the regulators who might have
earned medals had they used their still-considerable powers to blow the
whistle on some of the more egregious examples of corporate fraud that many
sensed was going on. Ditto for business and financial reporters who, by and
large, suspended their natural skepticism to join the cheerleading squad.

In these cases, it was not greed that was at play so much as an unwillingness
to become the skunk at the economic lawn party -- the all-too-human desire
not to be dismissed as an out-of-date crank who "doesn't get it" or called on
the carpet by a congressional committee or network president who just got an
earful from an angry corporate CEO.

If any one of these groups had acted the way they were supposed to and blown
the whistle, it is likely the bubble would never have grown so big -- or
perhaps never developed at all. But it is in the very nature of a bubble that
the lapses are simultaneous and widespread.

"It was the perfect storm," said Nell Minow, a corporate reformer who heads
the Corporate Library here in Washington. "A lot of things failed at once."

An Economic Mirage

Crucial to this system failure was the belief that because of globalization,
deregulation or new technology the world had changed so much that the old
rules need no longer apply. Suddenly bribes became incentive-based
compensation, lies became aggressive accounting and conflicts of interest
became "synergies."

Little indiscretions and envelope-pushing by one company spawned little ones
elsewhere -- and in time little ones gave way to bigger ones in places where
the corporate culture was most accommodating. "As long as everyone was making
money hand over fist, people were willing to overlook things," said Richard
Sylla, a financial historian at the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at
New York University. "It was a good party. Everyone wanted to keep it going."

Of course, not everyone bought in to the mania. There were, as there always
are, jeremiads warning that the prices were too high, the underlying
assumptions ridiculous, the books cooked. And they weren't just from kooks.
Detractors included respected investors and money managers such as Warren E.
Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., hedge fund manager Julian H. Robertson
Jr. of Tiger Management and Bill Miller, who runs giant mutual fund Legg
Mason Value Trust. Even Microsoft's Steve Ballmer said the software giant had
become overpriced.

But during bubbles, people pay more attention to profits than to prophets.

What bubbles prove is that if enough people believe something to be true,
they can will it to be true, at least for a while. A bubble is a collective
economic mirage generated by otherwise savvy people who first con themselves
and then con others -- legally, in most cases, but sometimes not.

So widespread is the "buy-in" that even after the bubble bursts, the
recognition that it was a bubble doesn't come in one moment of epiphany, but
rather in a series of smaller, begrudging acknowledgements.

When the air began to be let out of the bubble in March 2000, for example,
everyone said it was just the dot-coms that were the problem, a few thousand
over-financed companies whose disappearance would hardly be noticed in a $10
trillion economy.

Then it was "just" telecoms, then "just" computer makers, and, oh, well,
maybe the entire manufacturing sector, and so on, each line of defense
eroding like the walls of a sand castle confronting the rising tide.

The reality is that in an investment bubble as big as this one, what begins
in one or two sectors eventually spreads through the rest of the economy.
Flush with cash pushed at them by investors, all those dot-commers and
telecom executives not only bought computers and built office buildings --
the things picked up as "fixed investment" in the national income accounts --
they also used the invested cash to fly in airplanes, stay in hotels, retain
investment bankers and consultants, take out ads in newspapers and magazines,
and buy themselves fancy cars and vacation homes.

In what became a frantic search to hire employees, they wound up creating
shortages, pushing up wages in all corners of the labor market. And by paying
exorbitantly to acquire other companies, they created a force that pulled up
the price of all stocks.

Before long, it was impossible to tell where the Internet money stopped and
the rest of the economy began. It had insinuated itself everywhere in the
economy. And everywhere, people came to believe not only that the increased
sales were real, but that their upward trajectory was assured.

Familiar Pattern

Bubbles don't develop at random. They generally require the presence of two
crucial ingredients. The first is investment capital -- and by the mid-1990s,
the U.S. economy was awash in it.

This was partly the result of the democratization of finance in the past two
decades, which has driven up the percentage of American households that own
stock from less than a quarter to more than half at the height of the bubble.
The investment surge also coincided with the arrival of the baby boom
generation into that period of life when incomes are high and money starts
getting saved for retirement. Much of that money ended up in stock mutual
funds, which went from taking in about $125 billion in new money in 1995 to
$300 billion in the peak year of 2000.

In addition to that domestic capital was a flood of foreign money from
investors burned in the Asian financial meltdown or disillusioned by Europe's
slow progress in deregulating its economy and reforming its labor markets.
From 1995 to 2000, $1.2 trillion more investment capital flowed into the
United States than flowed out.

Some of that money went directly into the stock and bond markets; but just as
much came in the form of the direct purchase of American companies by foreign
ones -- Daimler-Benz AG's purchase of Chrysler Corp., for example, or Vivendi
SA's takeover of Seagram Co. Both types contributed significantly to the
run-up in stock prices, in the process lowering the cost of capital for U.S.
firms and stoking over-investment in new companies, plants and equipment.

The other crucial bubble ingredient was a new and economically transforming
technology. The railroad, electricity, the automobile and the radio all
spawned investment bubbles when first introduced, with each bubble giving way
to a market panic or crash -- and revelations of corporate fraud and
misconduct. So, too, would the breakthroughs in computer software, hardware
and telecommunications technology that would come together under the rubric
of the Internet.

The pattern each time was about the same. With too much money chasing too few
good investment opportunities, too many companies got started and too much
capacity was added, driving prices down to unsustainable levels. In the end,
virtually none of the long-term investors made money. In the case of the
railroads, for example, so much was spent on duplicate tracks and excess
rolling stock that it wasn't at least until the 20th century that the
industry finally turned a collective profit.

And, in the case of the Internet, one need look no further than the 75
percent decline in the Nasdaq to understand that very little of the economic
benefit of this new technology has flowed to any but the earliest investors.

In the end, according to J. Bradford DeLong, an economic historian at the
University of California at Berkeley, it turns out that consumers are the big
winners -- initially, consumers who enjoy the low prices that flow from the
ruinous competition, but eventually, consumers who reap the benefit of lower
prices and improved products and services that result when companies use new
technology to operate more efficiently.

DeLong notes that it was cheap freight rates offered by the railroads that
made possible Gustavus F. Swift's model for the modern meatpacking industry
and the Sears national catalogue operation. Now, in ways that are just
becoming clear, the Internet promises to revolutionize activities from auto
sales and fashion design to education and entertainment.

Already, DeLong says, advances spurred by the computer and the Internet have
boosted the economy's rate of productivity growth by 1.5 percentage points a
year, beginning in 1995. Through the magic of compounding, that translates
into close to a trillion dollars a year in higher living standards. Most of
that, DeLong argues, has been widely distributed to American workers in the
form of higher pay, to American consumers in the form of cheaper goods and
services, and to American investors in industries largely outside of tech and
telecom.

"The big benefits to these transforming technologies go to those who use
them, not those who invest in them," DeLong said.

New technology, over-investment, economic boom, market crash, corporate
scandal, recession -- in each bubble, the pattern is pretty much identical.
That hardly means it's easy to predict bubbles, or to tell when you're in one.

After all, if people knew it was a bubble, it would never happen in the first
place.

Other than this past year, when was the last time you heard or read deflation being discussed more seriously than inflation? Well, deflation is being discussed seriously now, even if it's the economic power that be dismissing it seriously!

Standard fair use disclaimers apply:

Fed vice chairman says deflation risks remote

Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)


PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania, Nov 12 (AFP) - The risks of deflation engulfing the US economy are remote and growth is set to strengthen, Federal Reserve board vice chairman Roger Ferguson said Tuesday.

Low inflation and concerns about the US recovery had raised questions about whether the Federal Reserve would run out of room to lower interest rates enough to stimulate the economy," Ferguson said.

"However, I do not think that macroeconomic outcomes will be sufficiently adverse to place us in imminent danger of hitting the so-called zero bound on nominal interest rates," he told an investment conference.

"Even more remote is the possibility that monetary policy will be unable to prevent deflation."

Deflation, or a sustained decline in prices, is often a sign of a contracting economy.

It erodes corporate profits, often leading to pressure for job cuts, depresses consumer demand, raises debt levels in real terms and weakens the impact of interest rate cuts on economic activity.

Many firms were experiencing price declines for goods, but this was due in part to productivity improvements, Ferguson said.

Inflation was currently running at an annual rate of about 1.5 percent for personal consumption expenditure and more than two percent for core consumer prices, he said.

Economic textbooks advised preemptive and aggressive action to minimise deflation risks, he said.

"In the unlikely event that our nation should face such a challenge, I believe that the Federal Reserve would demonstrate a commitment to such timely and decisive action."

But Ferguson said the likelihood of the United States suffering general deflation was "extremely low".

Monetary and fiscal policy had reacted swiftly to signs of a downturn and banks were well-capitalized, unlike the bad loan-ridden Japanese financial sector.

"The underlying structure of the US economy also seems fundamentally sound, reducing the risks going forward," he said.

Federal Reserve policymakers slashed key interest rates by half a percentage point November 6 to a fresh 41-year low in a bid to fire up the flagging economy.

The target for the federal funds rate, which commercial banks charge each other for overnight loans, was axed to just 1.25 percent. When inflation is taken into account, the real rate is minus 0.5 percent.

"It seems to me that with last week's easing in monetary policy, the pieces are in place to engender a gradual strengthening in economic activity in coming quarters," Ferguson said.

"With the real federal funds rate now below zero, monetary policy is providing considerable support to the interest-rate sensitive sectors of the economy," he said.

Economic recovery had been limited by the shakeout of the high-tech sector, relatively anemic foreign growth and uncertainty facing decision-makers, Ferguson said.

After the September 11 attacks, the economy had taken a second hit from corporate scandals. Now, it was being affected by "geopolitical risks," he said, alluding to the threat of war in Iraq.

"The possibility of additional terrorist attacks has been present for some time. But added to this concern are now the prospects for armed conflict," Ferguson said.

"Predicting the consequences of such an event with any precision is, of course, impossible, and this additional uncertainty has undoubtedly increased caution among businesses and perhaps even households."

Most of the major stock market indicies have completed what the technicians call a "Head and Shoulders Top". In other words a linear graph of say the S&P 500 looks like the head and shoulders outline of a person. Most manias end in this way. The Japanese Market performed a Head and Shoulders Top back in the early 90's. Beware of a steep plunge in the Stock Market in the coming months.

Didn't Al Gore just call Bush's economic plan "a catastrophic failure"?


Stocks Rally as New Economic Data Points to Recovery

By REUTERS
Filed at 12:18 p.m. ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks soared at midday on Wednesday, putting the blue-chip Dow average back on track for an eighth straight week of gains, as a raft of better-than-expected economic data buoyed hopes for corporate profits.

Wall Street applauded figures showing lower jobless claims, higher personal spending, expanding manufacturing and better durable goods orders.



I think Al Gore is an idiot, myself.

Didn't Al Gore just call Bush's economic plan "a catastrophic failure"?


Stocks Rally as New Economic Data Points to Recovery

By REUTERS
Filed at 12:18 p.m. ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks soared at midday on Wednesday, putting the blue-chip Dow average back on track for an eighth straight week of gains, as a raft of better-than-expected economic data buoyed hopes for corporate profits.

Wall Street applauded figures showing lower jobless claims, higher personal spending, expanding manufacturing and better durable goods orders.



I think Al Gore is an idiot, myself.

Didn't Al Gore just call Bush's economic plan "a catastrophic failure"?


Stocks Rally as New Economic Data Points to Recovery

By REUTERS
Filed at 12:18 p.m. ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks soared at midday on Wednesday, putting the blue-chip Dow average back on track for an eighth straight week of gains, as a raft of better-than-expected economic data buoyed hopes for corporate profits.

Wall Street applauded figures showing lower jobless claims, higher personal spending, expanding manufacturing and better durable goods orders.



I think Al Gore is an idiot, myself.

More bad news for the fear and crisis crowd:


Stocks Slip, But Dow Posts Two-Month Record Gain

By Jerry Knight
Washington Post Staff Writer

Stock prices slipped a little in today's truncated trading sessions, but not enough to mess up one of Wall Street's best two-month rallies in years.

The Dow Jones industrial average ended the month at 8,896.09 up 6.4 percent in November on top of a 12 percent gain in October. The Dow hasn't gained 18 percent in two months since the begining of 1975.

The Standard & Poor's 500 stock index closed at 936.31, up 5.6 percent for the month and ahead by 15 percent since the end of September, its biggest two-month gain since the first two months of 1987.

More bad news for the fear and crisis crowd:


Stocks Slip, But Dow Posts Two-Month Record Gain

By Jerry Knight
Washington Post Staff Writer

Stock prices slipped a little in today's truncated trading sessions, but not enough to mess up one of Wall Street's best two-month rallies in years.

The Dow Jones industrial average ended the month at 8,896.09 up 6.4 percent in November on top of a 12 percent gain in October. The Dow hasn't gained 18 percent in two months since the begining of 1975.

The Standard & Poor's 500 stock index closed at 936.31, up 5.6 percent for the month and ahead by 15 percent since the end of September, its biggest two-month gain since the first two months of 1987.

More bad news for the fear and crisis crowd:


Stocks Slip, But Dow Posts Two-Month Record Gain

By Jerry Knight
Washington Post Staff Writer

Stock prices slipped a little in today's truncated trading sessions, but not enough to mess up one of Wall Street's best two-month rallies in years.

The Dow Jones industrial average ended the month at 8,896.09 up 6.4 percent in November on top of a 12 percent gain in October. The Dow hasn't gained 18 percent in two months since the begining of 1975.

The Standard & Poor's 500 stock index closed at 936.31, up 5.6 percent for the month and ahead by 15 percent since the end of September, its biggest two-month gain since the first two months of 1987.

We'll see who has the last laugh. This is nothing more than a very typical Bear Market rally fueled by the Fed's rate cut and short covering. Beware of the next few months. A tremendous drop lies directly ahead.

We'll see who has the last laugh. This is nothing more than a very typical Bear Market rally fueled by the Fed's rate cut and short covering. Beware of the next few months. A tremendous drop lies directly ahead.

We'll see who has the last laugh. This is nothing more than a very typical Bear Market rally fueled by the Fed's rate cut and short covering. Beware of the next few months. A tremendous drop lies directly ahead.

Who's laughing?