In This Issue:
Most Economists Believe The Rescue Plan Will Work
Others Say It Will Only Postpone The Inevitable
We Think The Optimists Are Right
Meanwhile, Here's An All-Weather Investment Plan
The Bottom Line This Week
We've
been suspicious for several weeks that Mother Market was not happy about taking
a back seat to the recent Olympic games in China. To gain back some of the
limelight she has been making bigger swings, jumps, and dives than anything we
saw in Beijing. Her efforts are clearly working because nothing else has been
able to push financial news off the front pages.
Last
week, the market made yet another volatility record, not that anybody wanted to
see it. On four of the five days, prices changed over 300 points. Nevertheless,
when the dust settled, and the bodies were swept up, the Dow was only down a
miniscule 0.3%. The Nasdaq actually managed to rise 0.6%. If you happened to be
in Transylvania during the festivities, you might not have known how much fun
the rest of us had.
The
race for new records continued when the market opened on Monday of this week,
and stocks dropped 373 points. Prices started to settle down on Tuesday and
Wednesday when stocks fell 162 points and 29 points respectively. Given the
circumstances, it is too much to hope that the high volatility will end anytime
soon.
...