Dow Drops More Than 200 Points

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/060517/wall_street.html?.v=20 ^

[Koblenz]

Ben Stein ad-libbed that whole sequence...

[Brilliant]

buying opportunity.

[finnman69]

nothing to do with immigration

everything to do with inflation reports

[Recovering_Democrat]

Time to BUY!! :)

[soccer_maniac]

[ndt]

Well it might add to general uneasiness, but there are a lot of things that do that. The market is pretty resilient to unsubstantiated mood swings.

[BurbankKarl]

Well, money is bailing out of South America because of three countries confiscating oil and energy from foreign investors.

You can blame Hugo Chavez for that.

[LS]

The problem with Ben Stein's monologue is that the KEY VOTE on Hawley Smoot occurred on October 28, 1929, meaning that the market crash was the result of HS rather than being a reaction to it, and falling revenues.

[OldFriend]

It was inevitable that the cost of energy was going to impact prices.

Let's see if Bernanke is as dumb as Greenspan was. He raised interest rates as the cost of energy was squeezing business profits.

I have no confidence in Bernanke at all. Not since he whispered sweet nothings in Maria Bartiromo's ear.

[oceanview]

the depression was caused primarily by monetary policy after the crash, as well as some of FDR's social policies. Milton Friedman breaks it all down in one of his books, it had little to do with trade issues, which were trivially small at the time.

[LS]

Hmm, if you had the smarts you think you have, you could read my OWN book on Hawley Smoot ("The Entrepreneurial Adventure") and see that I criticize it sharply, siding with Wanniski's interpretation. But even know it all posters can make incredibly stupid claims without bothering to do basic research.

Now, people have made good arguments why the DOW isn't at all connected to these votes . . . all but the one that would be crucial, which is to track DOW performance with the progress of this bill through the Senate. No one bothered to take that approach to the crash and HS until the 1970s when Wanniski finally did it.

[LS]

Remember, however: "big business" BACKED Hawley-Smoot, expecting the same kinds of financial payoffs that you mention as possibly accompanying the immigration bill. And it was "big business" that paid the highest price.

[heights]

"The sky is falling", Chicken Little

[LS]

Disagree completely.

[linda_22003]

No. Consumer prices are up more than expected for April, and the market is unhappy that the Fed may raise interest rates again to control inflation.

[OpusatFR]

Looks to be a run to cash. Everything getting sold and gold just turned red.

Getting smoked on energy...E...OUTCH!

No repos? Looks like a battle of the fiats.

[LS]

Well, someone earlier mentioned "myopia" on FR. I submit that the market analysts can get their own "myopia"---they did so in 1929---and miss some of the obvious, real problems affecting the market. I'm not making a case for immigration affecting this, but I am saying someone ought to analyze it. So far, no one really is.

[ndt]

"Well, money is bailing out of South America because of three countries confiscating oil and energy from foreign investors. "

The biggest markets in Latin America are Mexico and Brazil, neither are in that list and it could be argued that Mexico would benefit from reduced export by Venezuela as they are the competition. Brazil on the other hand has a stake in Venezuelan oil fields if I'm not mistaken.

Generally though, it's not just Latin America, money is bailing world wide. Japan, India, China Europe. This is a broad sell off, not specific to anywhere. Latin America is dropping faster then the domestic market, but since it's up nearly 100% for the year, thats to be expected. Actually India seems to be the biggest drop from what I see.

[dagogo redux]

I believe it was J.P. Morgan, who, when asked by a reporter what he thought the market would do, replied, "It will go up and down".