Friday, October 24, 2008

If the walls on Wall Street could speak

I work for a non-profit organization just a block off Wall Street. That used to be an odd thing to say and to be -- what is a non-profit organization doing in the neighborhood of profit? Now, it's just sad and funny. There are so many -- even too many -- non-profitable institutions standing forlorn on Wall Street, and my daily commute is filled with these anxious voices around me, talking about "the market" and its various states of mortality sick, dying, dead. Someone behind me in a queue for the ferry ride home said two days ago to someone at the other end of her phone call: "Tomorrow (which was yesterday!) there will be an inflection point." She then proceeded to explain what that was. Which I didn't understand. Eavesdropping is not the best way to learn about the vagaries of the US stock market. Anyway, she said something about how the stock market would go down even lower, rally for six weeks (Yup, six. Not five or two. Don't ask me why.) Then go down even lower and behave like its a dog whose hind legs had been shot (that's me imagining, not the person I was eavesdropping on) all the way till next year.

Update: Is it self-fulfilling prophecy or do these things happen as Wall Streeters say they would? "Wall Street headed for another precipitous drop Friday as fears of a punishing global recession stirred panic among investors and sent world financial markets into a tailspin."
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