It's happened again. Stock market investors have proven that they are ignorant treasonous schmucks who are doing more damage to the American economy than al-Qaeda could ever dream of inflicting. Stock prices have plummeted today and have wiped out most or all gains for the year. The Dow fell 1.24% and dropped below the 10,000 level for the first time in two months. The NASDAQ fared even worse, dropping 2.91% to a six-month low.
Today got off to a bright start as first-quarter GDP figures showed strong 5.8% growth. While that figure's somewhat misleading, as it included some unsustainable inventory drawdowns, it nonetheless showed that the economy is well on its way to recovery. The recovery is likely to be fairly slow, but it's there and it's steady.
Unfortunately, today's good start went foul when the University of Michigan's consumer-sentiment survey came out one-half hour after the opening of trading, and showed a decline in April sentiment. Much of this decline was likely attributable to factors that were known already, particularly the tensions in the Middle East and rising gasoline prices. Add to that a couple of earnings warnings from idiotic companies such as JDS Uniphase and VeriSign (Typical investor: oh, but they're technology companies, their people are a lot smarter than I am, engineering and programmers and so on, so they must be real good companies!), and the stage was set for a horrible day.
What we saw today is another example in a very disturbing patterns. Ignorant, cowardly investors focus on any bad news no matter how insignificant and pay as little attention to good news as possible. Things have to be perfect before anyone will buy stocks, despite all the terrific bargains in the market. And it should go without saying that falling stock prices cause job losses, as people cut back spending and corporations slash staff in an attempt to please investors. A downward, self-reinforcing spiral results. And I, for one, am god-damned sick and tired of this cowardice!