NEW YORK - Wall Street pulled back Friday, retreating from record levels following disappointing results from longtime favorites Caterpillar Inc. and Google Inc. The Dow Jones industrials fell nearly 150 points.
he drop in stocks capped a losing week for the Dow after three weeks of gains, and came a day after the blue chips finished above 14,000 for the first time.
2007-07-20 10:55:15 · 6 answers · asked by bbbbriggs04 3 in Politics & Government ➔ Politics
Just beginning to take an interest in the financial markets, are you? I commend you! Very good.
As an agent in an investment firm, I can tell you that today's performance is a kneejerk reaction to earnings from Caterpillar and Google. By next week, I can assure you, the Dow will be back in 14,000 territory and going strong. The average P/E ratio is about 18 right now, and nowhere near where it was when the Dow crashed at the end of 2001 due to the buildup of wild and rampant speculation in the 90's.
Most tech stocks then were brand new companies who were not even making ANYTHING, but trading at $300-400 per share. That was insane and investors were crazy.
Today's market has plenty of infrastructure to sustain the prices and the market in my opinion is still underpriced.
People also have more money today. In the 90's everybody was buying on credit due to a much tighter fiscal policy that restricted M1 and M2.
The economy is in much better shape today. Clinton never had a 95.5% employment rate.
2007-07-20 11:02:26 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
Last year, the DOW was around 11,000. There was a much more substantial dip than this one in late April. Overall, the Market has been strong for longer than that.
The stock market, however, is only one of many economic indicators, and, it tends to be a leading indicator, since it runs on anticipation (albeit, not always accurate anticipation) more than past performance.
To really get a sense of the economy, you have to look at GDP(up), inflation (stable), unemployment (down), and real wages (stagnant), as well as things like the equity markets - stocks (good), bonds (OK), and mortgages (scarry).
Then, to get a sense of /America's/ economy, you'd have to tease out the effects of globalization - if you could even decide which effects are worth discounting, that is.
2007-07-20 18:06:46 · answer #2 · answered by B.Kevorkian 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A snapshot look at the Dow shows you nothing. One day might be great or horrible. You look for trends. In what you showed, we had 3 weeks of good growth and a week where things tanked. So by that bit on knowledge, the Republicans are right.
2007-07-20 18:04:36 · answer #3 · answered by Deep Thought 5 · 2⤊ 1⤋
Bush is doing such a fantastic job destroying our country, isn't he? He is laying down a red carpet for hillary clinton
(I wonder if on purpose - they are FRIENDS, with very little difference in policy think about it. If they DID do that, they could keep control of the government together)
2007-07-20 17:59:21 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 2⤋
what's your question? one week of downturn is part of the swing of the market, you have to look at a broader time frame if you really want to see how the market is doing.
2007-07-20 18:00:22 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 3⤋
*crickets chirping*
2007-07-20 17:59:22 · answer #6 · answered by Bon Mot 6 · 0⤊ 2⤋