Today’s WTF headline comes to us via the WSJ: Investors Succumb to Fears of Recession.
Other than really dumb mofos, does anybody really think the fear of recession is just now impacting the markets?
WSJ Excerpt:
"Despite the historic proportions of a credit crisis that is reshaping the foundations of Wall Street, many stock investors until recently continued to hope that any recession, if it even came to that, might be shallow or brief. Now, investors are starting to worry that the stock market has simply been slow to react to problems that have been screaming at investors in the credit markets for months.
"I thought we might actually be able to skirt by without a recession," said Ernest Ankrim of Russell Investments in Tacoma, Wash. "Now I think we are in a recession right now and probably will be in a recession for two quarters and maybe three, maybe even four."
The spreading trouble in Europe undermines the hope that resilient foreign economies could help buoy the U.S.
Investors were startled at the financial crisis’s sudden expansion within Europe, as governments there staged emergency interventions to help rescue banks in Germany and the Netherlands. Major stock indexes fell 7.9% in London and 9% in Paris, the largest percentage declines since 1987. Germany was down 7.1%.
Some small investors who had been hoping to ride out the storm have begun selling. That could mark the beginning of a process known as "capitulation," market lingo for the moment when a critical mass of investors give up on hopes of recouping losses, and instead sell. It is during capitulation that a selloff starts to run its course, and prices begin to feel for the bottom."
What? A recession is possible/probable?
What world do these people live in?
>
UPDATE: October 7, 2008 9:21am
NYTimes has the same front page silliness:
>
Source:
Investors Succumb to Fears of Recession
E.S. BROWNING and IANTHE JEANNE DUGAN
WSJ, OCTOBER 7, 2008
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122333567578609541.html
Global Fears of a Recession Grow Stronger
MARK LANDLER
NYT, October 6, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/business/worldbusiness/07global.html
What's been said:
Discussions found on the web: