On January 20, 2009, the day of Obama’s first inauguration, the Dow Jones Industrial Average opened at 8279.63, and the Standard and Poor’s 500 opened at 849.64.
Today they closed at 14009.79 and 1513.17, increases of 69% and 78%.
Why, just imagine where we’d be if he didn’t hate America, capitalism, and Wall Street!
Yesterday I alluded to the electronic trading debacle that pretty much wiped out Knight Capital last week. Here’s a more technical analysis of what probably happened from the boys at Nanex. It’s only a theory (Knight will likely never say what really happened), but it’s well supported by the public data.
Non-technical summary: someone at Knight mistakenly pointed a test application at the live market, an application specifically designed to 1) issue lots of orders, 2) not care if it was losing or making money, 3) not report what it was doing because it was only a test app. It’s a good way to burn $440MM in under an hour.
BTW, if any of you have any questions about how electronic trading works, hit my ask. I’m pretty good at explaining in non-technical terms. (I’ve been explaining this stuff to senior managers for a dozen years and they are mostly dumb as dirt.)
Thank the stars that President Hoover Obama capitulated and agreed to start shredding the safety net so we could borrow some more.
Because it would have been really bad for the markets if he didn’t.
LinkedIn had an IPO today. They were initially priced at $45 per share and you can see where they are trading now. Their current market cap of just under $10B puts them in the same territory as Goodrich, ConAgra, Nordstrom, and Whole Foods, giant, mature companies with giant factories and stores all over the world, companies with obvious revenue streams and growth plans and assets both physical and informational.
Seriously. The Market thinks Linked Freaking In is worth $10B.
I always want to be careful talking about the markets. I work for an SEC-registered broker dealer, so it’s partly a legal thing, and I’m a technologist anyway, not a trader or a researcher with great insights. I’m not an expert and I don’t pretend to be. You could probably make a fair living just taking the other side of my personal trades.
But you’re my friends and it’s just us cats chatting here, one on one, over coffee at lunch. So let me ask you if you remember the last dot-com boom/bubble. And I will ask you if you remember thinking, when it was over, something like, “dammit, I should have sold sooner!” Or if you didn’t participate, if you looked back and thought something like “dammit, even a monkey could have made money in this kind of market!” If you’re a very skilled investor, maybe you thought, “boy, I should have shorted that thing near the top.”
Did you think any of those things? Upon reflection, did or do you wish for another such opportunity to come by in your lifetime? Did you swear that if it did, you were going to act this time?
Just sayin’.
BUT OUR ISLAMOSOCIALIST PRESIDENT HATES BIDNESS!
