This was from today, AIG vice chairman said some chilling "jokes". We bailed them out will billions and he is joking on how cooked the books are.




WASHINGTON, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Insurance giant American International Group (AIG.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), on the receiving end of a multi-billion dollar bailout from the U.S. Federal Reserve, was trying hard on Saturday to look on the bright side of life.

"Credit markets do not function. Why not, because the word credit comes from credibility," AIG Vice Chairman Jacob Frenkel told a group of top global bankers at a lively luncheon where he took a philosophical view of the upheaval in financial markets.

"The left side of the balance sheet has nothing right and the right side of the balance sheet has nothing left. But they are equal to each other. So accounting-wise we are fine," he told the Institute of International Finance.

"Transparency is 'what you see is what you get' -- and what you don't see gets you," Frenkel said.
www.reuters.com...

Volatility kills markets. I literally watched a ticker fluctuate 100 points in either direction just before close on Friday.

Traders are skittish. Nobody knows what to do. It's *definitely* not fun times for those guys on the Street. I'd expect the Maalox tankers to set up station somewhere nearby, because they'll need it.

reply to post by andy1033

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There was a thing on NPR that said mathmatically if the pattern of losses keeps up to what it has been since September 26th the Dow will hit 0 in 19 trading days! (I believe I heard them say that on Tuesday!

Most of downwards energy is short selling that needs to be slow rather than quick. This logic goes in the face of liquidity. Why do we need liquidity? I was taught the trade off is return versus volatility. Why do we need shorts?



They didn't even get the price right. This is not allowed to be just a 'correction.'

HAHA, i got a good name. We cant just go around naming every day black. HAHA it gets confusing when theres a black day every day of the week. haha So
how about we just go about it nd call this,

Black October! haha Its not over yet but i am assuming this will be one of the worst months in the history of the stock market.

But why black? Wouldn't red me more fitting? It is the color for negative #s.


Red october? haha

oh wait, its black monday now? what happened to black friday? black wednesday? black 2:13pmCST? When will chicken little come by and throw the sky at you?

reply to post by tensetek

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That's right, Tensetek.

At first, I didn't believe Lindsey Williams, but now even CNN is saying that oil could drop as low as $50 or $60. And...there's an article on Time Magazine's website that talks about how it could essentially wipe out the Middle Eastern countries who've set their budgets according to the price of oil.

Not to mention what it would do to the dollar.

reply to post by CoffinFeeder

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Nobody knows the exact date, CoffinFeeder...but it's coming, and it ain't far off. Just be a little more patient.

The sky is falling, and it's a big a** sky.

I haven't read these type of posts but all I've got to say is: Is it going to be Black Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday? Lets make a thread everyday until it happens.

I personally think that the markets are up huge on Monday. Almost everyone of my clients has called looking to buy on Monday(Ive trained them well). The foreign markets will be reassured that the US did not follow their last day of trading with a huge decline. I expect Asia will be up 10%+ on Monday making up all their losses from fridays close. Point is all the experienced investors are drooling at this opportunity. They could be early, but they feel secure buying and holding a few years at these prices.

I personally think the PTB are positioning to destroy the fed. I think they are moving slowly in order to prevent even worse havoc. Once the fed is gone and we control our own money supply most of the problems will fix themselves. So what if we have to merge with Canada and Mexico? We started out as 13 colonies if anyone remembers. Expansion is just the natural course of things.

Right on.

Color me blind . . . These are subliminal messages to influence the election.

Everyone could see on Friday that computer parametric trading that heavily influences trading patterns regards DJIA = 7000, projected for upcoming Monday, as significantly undervalued stock. There is no way that the market wouldn't buy its way up away from 7000. Computers don't give a sh-t what G7 potentates say, unless you change the parameters in the trading algorithm, which you won't. On the wannabe Black Friday, right after George Bush ended his reassuring speech, DJIA started sliding down and lost around 400 points. This was kept hush-hush in all media, not to create an impression that politicians are no longer in charge of influencing the outcome of short term money market deals in general by blah-blah.

The Friday close is considered a tad above moderately overvalued stock, so Monday will start with selling, but it won't make it to the black territory when the bell rings -- unless there is some major, collective reprogramming done over the weekend.

As you said, there is always hope to paint NYSE black: Tuesday, Wednesday . . . But when the trading burns the fuse one day, because it is not impossible, all the media financial analyst losers mentioned in OP wrap themselves into I-TOLD-YOU-SO velvet to rescue their failing Nostradamus career.

Dude I soooooooooooooo hope you are right about giving up the fed! I suspect you are "thinking positive"!

Izzzz amazin to me we are ready and willing to give up the US??
Wow!! Not the country I grew up with ofcourse I may be a little older than you.

The good rule of thumb to follow with Cramer is that the opposite of whatever he says is going to happen. If hes predicting a crash, there is a very good chance we will have a huge rally. When he was telling everyone to buy, it was a good idea to sell.

And what is exactly the obsession with creating Black Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday/Friday around here? Every day someone has predicted for the next business day to be a stock crash. Wish fulfillment much? Maybe if we all just think hard enough for a economic apocalypse, it will happen, eh?

[edit on 12-10-2008 by LowLevelMason]

reply to post by netwarrior

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Yes

I Agree!

GREAT SITE BTW

Yeah because so far nothing has happened right? were all jsut completely wrong. Because im pretty sure we lost one fourth of the worlds entire stock market value in just a week. thats not deserving of any negative speculation.

COME ON. We got royally screwed this last week. theres as much of a reason to expect the same thing to happen next week also.

I would say any day last week that someone predicted, or deducted is a better term, anything was pretty much dead on. Because every day last week was very huge and very abnormal.

And Cramer isn't a fortune teller, theres no reason to do what he says. He is jsut giving his insight on certain stocks. he i just in essence a translator for the average Investors. He takes technical confusing information and finance talk, and makes it simple for the average middle aged investor who is investing for their retirement. thats his target audience. He knows what he is talking about, he has his head inside the gut of the finance system everyday. i don't personally watch him because he doesn't really discuss anything that isn't already apparent for someone who really fallows the market attentively.

reply to post by ghostlandseller

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The only qualified folks to say something about the next development are the traders who made money in the past two weeks. If you're really good, then you are out there on the floor; if you're not, then you talk and sell your insights to those who are willing to listen.

These days, you don't need any dubious support to start a thread about Black Monday, Black Tuesday, or Black Anyday.

Actually, nothing much has happened. Just your normal hysterical and panic based selling. It happens every few years - in 2001-2002, early 1990s, 1987, late 1970s - interestingly, NONE of those times did it cause economic armageddon. The 1987 events did cause a recession, though.

Hysteria and panic based selling just move money from the poor to the rich. The 401k and IRA investors sell on emotion and panic and buy high, then sell low. The hedge funds move in to pick up deals and buy low, sell high.



No, no we didn't. The DOW is not a indicator of the health of the economy and never has been. The markets sell off and media fuels the hysteria, it happens every few years.



No, actually, they were not. Every day last week all the predictions I saw were for economic collapse, great depression, etc. - all within 48 hours, mind you. Markets selling off is not abnormal, its quite normal.



Cramer is a good litmus test for the sheep market sentiment. As the sheep are always a lagging indicator (they get the information last, after all), by the time Cramer is stirring panic it means its time to buy. When Cramer is screaming to buy, its time to sell off.

reply to post by LowLevelMason

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Yea but if hysteria and panic become an overwhelming force, there will truly be hard times based on the downward spiral. Hysteria and panic breeds more hysteria and panic.

If the housing market does not show stability, the entire derivative market that uses the home market as part of its foundation will crumble. There is a reason why the government is trying desperately hard to prop up home prices by preventing foreclosures through loan re-negotiations.

The sub-prime pop has shown exactly how much damage that a crashing home market can do to the financial systems, and still only less than 15% of sub-prime loans have failed. What happens when it goes to a 25% or more failure rate? What happens when other home loans start going into the danger zone?

Credit default swap insurers are going to be more exposed and have their credit ratings downgraded if the housing market keeps going down. They will have to come up with more capital a la AIG bailout or else the whole financial world becomes a 50 trillion dollar wide black-hole.

As far as I am concerned, hysteria and panic are probably the most logical emotions to go through at this time. The government and banks MUST shore up the housing markets, which they are attempting to do or else the entire economic world better start drawing up plans for a new economic system.

However, the markets seem to like action. I bet the markets will see some gains because of the perceived positive action the government is taking, but all it takes is one more bit of bad news and down we go again.

The markets are already up 4-5% in Australia and the Dow Jones futures indicates a +228, according to CNNMoney.com