DollarTalkNet

Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

Falling with a thud is mild. We definitely have a higher volume of day trading profit takers in this market compared to past bear markets, in addition to the increased short selling and lack of the uptick rule. But we also still have investors selling off gains when the market creeps up because they don't want to pay gains in 2009 and following.

The Fed already commented in their minutes from October that they expect this "slow down" to last through the 2Q of 2009, so no surprise on the "Great Recession" news above. Lowering interest rates below 1% seems painful, but rates were below that during the "Great Depression", so we shouldn't be surprised by this.

Ultimately, it doesn't seem that globalization has paid off for the U.S. economy, as we have continued to lose our industrial backbone and now even outsource service jobs, like bookkeeping and call centers. The auto industry has a hard argument to make today, as we've also become accustomed to their competition's level of running businesses within our own borders. It seems this could be ugly for quite some time.