Thursday, October 9, 2008
Dow plunges more than 678 to fall below 9,000
NEW YORK (AP) -- Stocks plunged in the final hour of trading Thursday, sending the Dow Jones industrial average down more than 675 points, or more than 7 percent, to its lowest level in five years after a major credit ratings agency said it was considering cutting its rating on General Motors Corp.
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The Standard & Poor's 500 index also fell more than 7 percent.
The declines came on the anniversary of the closing highs of the Dow and the S&P. The Dow has lost 5,585 points, or 39 percent, since closing at 14,198 a year ago. The S&P 500, meanwhile, is off 655 points, or 42 percent, since recording its high of 1,565.15.
Thursday's sell-off came as Standard & Poor's Ratings Services put GM and its finance affiliate GMAC LLC under review to see if its rating should be cut. GM has been struggling with weak car sales in North America.
The action means there is a 50 percent chance that S&P will lower GM's and GMAC's ratings in the next three months.
S&P also put Ford Motor Co. on credit watch negative. The ratings agency said that GM and Ford have adequate liquidity now, but that could change in 2009.
GM led the Dow lower, falling $2.15, or 31 percent, to $4.76, while Ford fell 58 cents, or 22 percent, to $2.08.
"The story is getting to be like that movie Groundhog Day," said Arthur Hogan, chief market analyst at Jefferies & Co. He pointed to the still-frozen credit markets, and Libor, the bank-to-bank lending rate that remains stubbornly high despite the Fed's recent rate cut.
"Until that starts coming down, you'll be hard-pressed to find anyone getting excited about stocks," Hogan said. "Everything we're seeing his historic. The problem is historic, the solutions are historic, and unfortunately, the sell-off is historic. It's not the kind of history you want to be making."
According to preliminary calculations, the Dow fell 678.91, or 7.3 percent, to 8,579.19. The blue chips hadn't closed below the 9,000 level since the June 30, 2003.
Broader stock indicators also tumbled. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 75.02, or 7.6 percent, to 909.92, while the Nasdaq composite index fell 95.21, or 5.47 percent, to 1,645.12.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 47.37, or 8.67 percent, to 499.20.
A wave of fear about the economy sent stocks lower late in the final two hours of trading after a volatile start to a day in which major indicators like the Dow and the S&P 500 index bobbed up and down. The Nasdaq, with a bevy of tech stocks, spent much of the session higher but eventually as the sell-off intensified. Still, its losses were less severe because of the relatively modest drops in names like Intel Corp. and Microsoft Corp.
On the New York Stock Exchange, declining issues came to nearly 3,000, while fewer than 250 advanced.
The sluggishness in the credit markets that triggered much of the heavy selling in markets around the world since mid-September appeared little changed Thursday following days of efforts by the Federal Reserve and other central banks to resuscitate lending.
Libor, the bank lending benchmark, for three-month dollar loans rose to 4.75 percent from 4.52 percent on Wednesday. That signals that banks remain hesitant to make loans for fear they won't be paid back.
The Fed and other leading central banks this week lowered key interest rates to help unclog the credit markets and promote lending to help the global economy. While a rate cut can take up to a year to work its way through the economy, the move was aimed as a boost to investor sentiment.
"We're stuck in a morass and I think it's going to take quite some time to come out of it," said Stephen Carl, principal and head of equity trading at The Williams Capital Group.
Demand remained high for short-term Treasurys, a refuge for investors willing to trade modest returns to protect their money. The yield on the three-month Treasury bill, which moves opposite its price, fell to 0.51 percent from 0.63 percent late Wednesday. Longer-term debt prices fell, with the yield on the 10-year note rising to 3.77 percent from 3.65 percent late Wednesday.
Investors across markets were mulling a plan being considered by the Bush administration to invest in hobbled U.S. banks as a way to stabilize the financial sector. The $700 billion rescue package signed into law last week allows the Treasury Department to inject fresh capital into financial institutions and obtain ownership shares in return.
Britain rolled out a similar plan, though no U.K. bank has received any investments. In Iceland, the government now has control of the country's three major banks as it struggles to contain the troubles there.
Wall Street is also looking for any effects of short selling now that a three-week ban imposed by regulators has expired. Short selling is a technique in which investors borrow shares in a company from a broker and sell them, hoping to buy them back later at a lower price. Essentially, it's a bet that a stock's price will fall. Short sellers can lose money if they have to repurchase the stock after it has risen.
Some analysts believe the unprecedented ban on short selling -- an effort to bolster investor confidence -- did more harm than good at a time of historic market volatility. They contend that short sellers help the market rally by covering their bets and creating demand for stocks.
"I think the market's way oversold. But I can't stand in the way of this falling knife -- I'd get sliced open," said Phil Orlando, chief equity market strategist at Federated Investors. "Investors are just saying, get me out at any price."
He also said that with the short-selling rule back in play, hedge funds might be shorting again to make up for their forced liquidations.
Volume on the NYSE came to 2.04 billion shares.
In Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 closed down 0.50 percent while the Hang Seng added 3.31 percent. In Europe, Britain's FTSE-100 fell 1.21 percent, Germany's DAX fell 2.53 percent, and France's CAC-40 declined 1.55 percent.
New York Stock Exchange: http://www.nyse.com
Nasdaq Stock Market: http://www.nasdaq.com
Woman charged with burning husband Nuts.
By ROBERT NAPPER
MANATEE - A Bradenton woman has been arrested on a battery charge after authorities say she poured scalding hot water on her husband's groin while he slept.
Manatee County Sheriff's Office deputies arrested Maverna Theresa Turay, 52, at 1:37 a.m. today on a charge of aggravated battery with great bodily harm.
Click here to find out more!
Authorities say while her husband slept, Turay boiled a pot of water and threw the water on his groin, causing second degree burns. The husband ran out of the house screaming, while another relative called 911, the sheriff's report said.
The husband was flown to a burn unit at Tampa General Hospital. Turay did not give a reason for pouring the water on her husband, but said she had been drinking beer, the sheriff's report said. She was being held at the Manatee County jail on $7,500 bond.
Ouch! He must have done something to really piss her off.
http://www.bradenton.com/news/breaking_news/story/939027.html
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Martial Law Coming Soon To America!
| 1. | Martial law | 76 up, 6 down   | |
| The day Martial Law is declared, is the day you wake up and realize that your Constution/bill of Rights/Charter of Rites and Freedoms/etc. is really just about as valuable as that Kleenex you just spunked in... because rites are just privileges, and privileges can be revoked. Your government will do whatever it takes to stay in power, and they got the gunz... Martial Law can be recognized by the increased presence of men with plexiglass shields and/or sub-machine-guns, a pale green fog that tastes, smells and feels like burning, random acts of hippy clubbing and indiscriminate shooting into crowds. If your going to "get your loot on" its best to do it during the Preceding state of emergency, because once Martial Law is declared, the party's over. Usually once Martial Law is declared, its best to just stay home, tune into your local state-owned media outlet and do what they say. The punishment for most criminal offenses becomes summary execution, and most of the things you might do out in public become criminal offenses. Looting = criminal offense = shot on sight Exercising freedom of speech= criminal offense= disappeared (shot out of sight) looking like you might be a 'rebel' = criminal offense = a. shot on sight or b. disappeared On the street after curfew = criminal offense = shot on sight Looking at the officer the wrong way = criminal offense = shot on sight If you must go out, try not to wear that 'Rage Against the Machine' tee-shirt, red stars, or clenched-fist logos, as these may attract unwanted bursts of well-aimed fire in your direction. Remember that meeting you went to back in college? Where the guy at the front was talking about "property is theft" this, and "smash the state" that? Which you attended just so you could meet that cute outspoken Alternachick from your poli-sci class? Well, I hope she put out because thats the reason you have to agents beating on you with a phone book, trying to get a confession out of you... in the washroom of a stadium-turned-detention center. Was she worth it? (tip: just confess, the electrodes are next and a tap to the back of the head hurts less). "Rites? Didn't you hear son? Its Martial Law! Agent Jonston, hand me those electrodes will you?" | |||
Martial Law, coming to a city near you?
Could it happen, in America? Well, it already did.
In New Orleans, during the disaster, army rode in, not to bring food supplies and water, but to maintain martial law. Instead of taking people out, they herded them in to a stadium, and those that refused to move were shot at and killed. In fact, most of the looting that went on was actually perpetrated by the police state forces.
Many claim that the 9/11 attacks were perpetrated by a cabal of the Illuminati within the US government. More and more, we see evidence of our government spying on us, legislating policies that harm us, and cooperating with evil regimes like China that poison us, our children, and our pets with the products they sell.
This may all look funny and innocent, but
in truth it is mind control on a very sophisticated scale. Television pacifies the minds of the viewer, and "programming" like this is very effective in allowing the public to accept the inevitable future reality.It may only be a cartoon today, but tomorrow it will not be in just Springfield, but in your own town. Beware America, the wily FOX is out to get you once again.
Barack H. Obama: The Unauthorized Biography by Webster G. Tarpley
Description:
Tarpley wrote the 1992 expose of Bush 41, and this book works from a New Deal perspective. Obama is a foundation operative controlled by Brzezinski, Soros, and Wall Street. Obama was picked up by Brzezinski at Columbia in 1981-1983, during Obama's secret lost years. Obama worked for the Gamaliel, Joyce, Woods, and Annenberg foundations. A community organizer is a poverty pimp, a cynical opportunist who exploits suffering people. Obama's foundation strategy is divide and conquer, pitting blacks and against whites, etc., to preserve Wall Street rule. Weatherman terrorist bombers Ayers and Dohrn are Obama's best friends. Rezko, Auchi, and Al-Sammarae typify Obama's cesspool of Chicago graft. Schooled in Nietzsche and Fanon, Obama qualifies as a postmodern fascist. An Obama administration means brutal economic sacrifice to finance Wall Street bailouts, and imperialist confrontation with Russia and ChinaRead a book Read a book Read a motherfucking book!
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