So the markets are now all closed.
The US dollar gained against the Euro by about 2%. US Treasury interest rates continued their plunge. Market forces are saying S&P was wrong – or that the market just doesn’t care that in 10 years, the US might be broken beyond repair.
The US Stock market ended down about 6%. My rule of thumb is that the last half hour reflects what the indivdual investors are doing – stock mutual funds have to settle their Net Asset Value (NAV) based on the closing price, so they sell or buy near the close. Things definitely picked up momentum down at the close – not a surprise given the cheerleading by the Media rooting for a market crash. Small companies were hit harder (the Russell 2000 was down 8%)
Oil keeps going down, gold keeps going up.
Bank of America lost 20% in one day. That’s because they admitted their mortgage losses are going to be bigger than they thought. I wouldn’t be upset if my BoA branch suddenly had a BoNY / Mellon sign out front [except they closed the local branch about 4 months ago]. Banks that were “saved” by the government in 2008 and haven’t dug their way out yet are the ones in the biggest risk.
The bonds issued by the FDIC were downgraded today. They don’t have the cash to “save” Bank of America or any of the other big banks. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae’s bonds were also downgraded since they rely on a promise by the US Government to repay them.
Just in case my reference caused confusion – BNY/Mellon doesn’t have retail branches. Its individual clients come to discrete offices to conduct “wealth managment”. Mellon is an “old money” bank for the already wealthy – it doesn’t want to get involved in repossessing cars and foreclosing on mortgages and dealing with the “little people” who bounce checks and want a free toaster just to open an account
Hmmmm, Have you considered your local ‘Wood-Forest’ (actual name) branch bank? These seem to be located in the front of your local ‘China-Mart’ (wal-mart).
They drawback is that your personal check drawn on a wood-Forest account is only accepted at China-Mart. LOL
No-kidding!
They generally have a flat screen on the wall in the wood-Forest bank and you can get news or sports scores depending what its tuned too while checking out of china-mart.
They go for the steady income gang,(gov’t checks and cheese crowd) from what I have heard. Is that ‘Old’ money ?
I guess it used to be our money, LOL
send Geithner to London !
Several of the big chain stores run their own banks – it gives them options to process debit card transactions without paying a bank. They also immediately get the money instead of having to deal with your bank playing with the float. Target was one of the big players in having a private brand credit card that it runs.
The bigger regional supermarket chains here do have mini-banks in the front of the store, but Wal-Mart doesn’t yet have Super WalMarts here.