jim, it's a rat market. not a bear market. rats are liars, voracious consumers with no seeming benefit, like hiding in the dark, like creating panic, like eating little children. you pamper bears, you kill rats and/or starve them out. it's mind numbing words of panic that help feed the rats and give them continued credance. russia wasn't a free market problem when they were communists and a 100% black market. now they're free and an 80% black market, and now they become a problem. friends there have told me that the russian economy is actually doing okay working off of US dollars and German marks (they also stated that NO ONE wants to trade in the ruble - you buy things, you buy them with dollars - this "unofficial" picture doesn't relay easily dollarwise to the world stock markets). the govt. of russia and their central bank is in hurt, not the general russian person or the general russian economy per se. Vimple, for example, stock has dropped from $50 to $10. they aren't selling any less mobiles and project continued growth. most purchases are made in dollar denominated units but is translated back to rubles for tax purposes only. so, you want to dump your rubles for dollars, you pay a 10% to 20% fee.
removing $600 billion market cap from the US market (not to mention the excessive valuation removed from Europe's markets) because the russian govt. can't adequately collect taxes or police its central bank is overdone.
joe american doesn't know why he's selling. he sees a decrease in his statement at the days end and jumps ship. he hears russia is going under, blah schmah. after the dust settles, joe jumps back on when mr. market samwise shoves the price back up from where he sold. |
