Stocks Blast Higher on News of Geithner for Treasury, Dow Soars 500

[muman613]

Good news in the market today...

http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/081121/business_us_markets_stocks.html

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rallied late on Friday after multiple news reports that New York Federal Reserve President Timothy Geithner will be nominated as President-elect Barack Obama's Treasury secretary.

The news erased uncertainty that has been hanging over the market and helped offset fresh worries about the future of embattled No. 2 U.S. bank Citigroup (NYSE:C - News), which had earlier put a cap on a broad advance during a choppy session.

Advancing energy shares also gave the markets a lift, climbing alongside oil, which rallied from 3-1/2-year lows. Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM - News) was the biggest lift for the Dow, gaining 6.2 percent to $72.77.

The Dow Jones industrial average (DJI:^DJI - News) rose 188.04 points, or 2.49 percent, to 7,740.33. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index (^SPX - News) gained 17.98 points, or 2.39 percent, to 770.42. The Nasdaq Composite Index (Nasdaq:^IXIC - News) was up 23.06 points, or 1.75 percent, at 1,339.18.

[Lewinsky Stinks, Dr. Brennan Rocks]

Not good news. This will just encourage oil to skyrocket again.

Frankly we need to do away with the stock market. It's absurd to have an economy that is based purely on speculation and the whims of gamblers.

[muman613]

Not good news. This will just encourage oil to skyrocket again.

Frankly we need to do away with the stock market. It's absurd to have an economy that is based purely on speculation and the whims of gamblers.

CF,

In a way I agree. I dont like gambling at all and do believe that the market is a gamble. But the market has been rising year after year {look at the graph of the DJIA which I posted earlier} and it is the cornerstone of the free-market economy. What do you propose to take it's place? Communism?

[Lewinsky Stinks, Dr. Brennan Rocks]

I don't know. But a speculation-driven economy, in which a handful of powerful investors determine the price of everything, is not a free market.

It makes no sense. Food prices shot up this year due to the fear that later on, someday, rising corn cultivation for ethanol might cut into available arable land for crops. It didn't happen, and never will most likely. But we all got screwed on the price of everything from milk to oranges anyway.

This probably would be a good question to ask Chaim.

[Lewinsky Stinks, Dr. Brennan Rocks]

Just think of the premise of it: the fatcats all went wild because some guy will be made Secretary of the Treasury. Like that will give people jobs, get us off of Arab Nazi oil, and bring back all the industry that has been sent to China, Pakistan, and Mexico.

I tell you, what the market is based on is absurd these days.

[GodGunsAndGlory]

CFR member.

[muman613]

CF,

My feeling is that the American Stock market is just now adjusting to global issues. In the past the market was less volatile because America was the prime economic power. Now with countries like China and India rising and the economy is a global one it becomes much harder to forsee the future.

The stock market is invested in by most middle class people. I have 401K and some stock options and I have been treated well {Thank G-d}. The issue which is most important to investors is to diversify the investments. I am not a financial wizard, though my brother was...

muman613

[Lewinsky Stinks, Dr. Brennan Rocks]

But all of these global issues have been speculative. Yeah, more Chinese and Indians are driving cars these days (thanks to all our jobs going to them), but still it's not that there was a shortage of oil this summer--it was the fear that someday, there might be.

Same thing with the housing "boom" of three or four years back that has now crashed: one of the big reasons housing went up fast was because raw materials did--the housing booms in India and China (thanks again to outsourcing) drove up the price of lumber and concrete worldwide, even though there was no shortage whatsoever of those things in America.

[briann]

Not good news. This will just encourage oil to skyrocket again.

Frankly we need to do away with the stock market. It's absurd to have an economy that is based purely on speculation and the whims of gamblers.

You need to take an econ class.  Theres a reason why no country in the world operates without a secondary market for securities.