"It was like avoiding an atom bomb, or in this case, a financial bomb," quipped one Morgan Stanley trader.
That was his reaction to Monday's surprisingly strong stock market performance following Friday's wicked 166-point decline in the Dow in the wake of the Egyptian riots.
The consensus of some market watchers over the weekend was that all hell might break loose on Monday, but it never happened. The market opened higher, never looked backed and wound up the day higher, with the Dow rising more than 68 points.
Even the Wall Street Journal guessed wrong, telling its readers over the weekend that U.S. stocks were likely to extend their Friday tumble when the market opened Monday. Actually, when you think about it, the Journal should have been right, given the obvious risks related to the riots, notably:
-- They might encourage terrorists to spread the riots to destabilize other Mideast regimes, such as Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
-- Lead to a possible disruption in the transportation of 2 percent of the world's oil through the Egyptian-controlled Suez Canal, which would cause the price of crude to skyrocket.
-- More than likely heighten tensions between Israel and its neighbors should Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak (who announced he will not seek re-election) leave and radical elements take control of the country, the leading Arab peacemaker in the region.
Apparently, investors pooh-poohed the significance of these risks. Though investors escaped the ravages of the riots on Monday, the question is raised as to whether Wall Street is making a mistake by downplaying the crisis. Some market watchers suggest yes.
One is well-regarded Wall Street veteran, Fred Dickson, chief investment strategist of D.A. Davidson & Co. in Great Falls, Montana, who argues the worst may not be over yet as far as the Egyptian conflict goes. It will prey on investors' minds until stability is restored, he says. "It's like a flash fire; either it goes out right away or it smolders. This one will smolder."
Dickson figures the Egyptian situation will lead to above average market volatility for the next month or so. One obvious danger, he notes, is the possibility that extremist elements may gain control of the country. If that happens, he observes, "look for a nasty market decline."
In any event, Davidson sees stock prices vulnerable to a 3 percent to 5 percent pullback some time soon. "This market has come awfully far awfully fast and looks overextended," he says.
Another market watcher also questions the wisdom of downplaying the crisis. He's Costa Rican money manager Felix Heligmann, who manages about $93 million of family and friends' assets.
About a week ago with the Dow hovering around 12,000, up about 20 percent since late August, he told me "The U.S. market is acting so strong that you really have to be a player and I'm going to increase my position."
But that was a week ago. Now, in light of the riots in Egypt, he's had a change of heart. "I've changed my mind about doing more buying," Heligmann says. "The market is acting like the events in Egypt were a non-event. That's reckless, scary and it's also not right because too many things there could go wrong. Does anyone," he asks, "really think the U.S. haters in the Mideast are not plotting ways to worsen this crisis?"
Whether he's right or wrong is anybody's guess. But for sure, he's dead on about the market, which, based on its ongoing strength, looks like a combination of Samson, Hercules and Conan the Barbarian all wrapped up into one.
Citigroup views the political unrest in Egypt as little more than "a short-term challenge." In addition, a Rasmussen poll shows that 75 percent of the participants don't think the Egyptian problems will spread.
I only wish I could be so cocksure. Reminds me of this boat captain who assured an alarmed passenger: "Don't worry; the Titanic could never sink."
What do you think? E-mail me at CDandordan@aol.com.
Okay folks, it looks like the whole country is now playing Peter Peterson's budget ball. For those not familiar with him, Peterson is a Wall Street investment banker. He has made billions of dollars through his dealings and government subsidies, and now he is using much of this money to accomplish a lifelong quest, gutting Social Security and Medicare.
Toward this end, he has set up a fake news service (the "Fiscal Times"); he's funded scary, anti-Social Security documentaries; sponsored a set of rigged public forums (America Speaks) and even paid for the construction of a high school curriculum to indoctrinate school children. According to some accounts, he is now the largest employer in the DC area after the Pentagon.
The way Peterson's budget game works is that you get some deficit or debt target. This is against a backdrop where the baseline projections show the deficits going through the roof in 10-20 years. The reason for the exploding deficit is the projection of exploding health care costs. The US would be looking at massive budget surpluses if it had the same per person health care costs as any other wealthy country.
Under the rules of Peterson's budget ball, you are not allowed to do anything about rising health care costs. In fact, reform of the private health care system was explicitly ruled out as an option at the Peterson-funded America Speaks forums.
This means, for example, that we can't reduce prescription drug costs by adopting a more efficient mechanism for financing drug research. The Center for Medicare and Medicare Services projects that the country will spend more than $3.3 trillion on prescription drugs over the next decade. We would probably spend less than one-tenth of this amount if drugs were sold in a free market, but Peterson's budget ball doesn't let you reform the system of financing drug research. You can't even go the intermediate step of public financing of clinical trials advocated by Joe Stiglitiz, the Nobel laureate who was President Clinton's chief economist.
Peterson budget ball also doesn't let contestants take any of the other steps that could bring US health care costs more in line with costs elsewhere. This would include letting Medicare beneficiaries buy into more efficient health care systems elsewhere. This could put tens of thousands of dollars into the pockets of beneficiaries each year while saving the government trillions of dollars in the coming decades.
Nor does Peterson budget ball allow for medical tourism, which could lead to huge cost savings as people get their health care in other countries to escape our broken system. Peterson's budget ball also does not allow contestants to take down the barriers that prevent more foreigners from coming to practice medicine in the US, bringing physicians' wages here in line with the rest of the world.
Not only does Peterson's budget ball prevent contestants from fixing the health care system. He also doesn't want them to tax Wall Street speculation. This source of revenue could raise close to $1.8 trillion over the course of a decade. Virtually all of the revenue would come at the expense of the financial industry, since most investors would simply cut back their trading in response to any increase in trading fees.
And Peterson doesn't want anyone to consider the possibility that we could have the Federal Reserve Board simply hold the government bonds it is now buying, so that taxpayers are not burdened with hundreds of billions a year in additional interest payments. If the Fed held $3 trillion in bonds in 2020, offsetting the inflationary impact with higher reserve requirements, it would save the country $150 billion a year in interest.
Their argument is that we wouldn't want Congress dictating policy to the Federal Reserve Board. After all, the Fed has done such a great job. According to the claims of its chairman, Ben Bernanke, the Fed's policies brought us to the brink of a second Great Depression. With that sort of track record, how can anyone suggest making the Fed more accountable?
In short, in Peterson's budget ball, we can't make any changes that might create any serious inconvenience for the rich and powerful. We can have some small cuts in defense and modest tax increases for the rich as window dressing, but what we are left with is a massive budget deficit and nothing but Social Security, Medicare, and other social programs left to cut.
That might sound like a rigged game, but Peterson is paying for it, so he gets to set the rules. What else would we expect? The big question is whether President Obama is also playing this game. We will find out Tuesday.
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