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Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Just suppose...
Posted by Jill | 9:34 PM
Philip Barron at Waveflux asks the obvious question:

...if Social Security was all privatized the way George Bush wants it to be, all tied up in the stock market...

...how much of your retirement fund would you have lost today?


I'll go a step further: If you retired today, and your account was invested in the stock market, how would you feel?

A royal stinker of a day it was, too:

The Dow plunged 174.02 points, or 1.6 percent, to 10,611.20 as all but one of its 30 components fell into the red. It was the market barometer's biggest loss in points since May 19, 2003.

The Nasdaq Composite Index slid 28.30 points, or 1.4 percent, to 2,030.32 and the S&P 500 fell 17.43 points, or 1.5 percent, to 1,184.16.

In the broader market, decliners led advancers 26 to 7 on the New York Stock Exchange and 23 to 9 on the Nasdaq. Big Board volume was about 1.74 billion shares while some 2.05 billion shares traded on the Nasdaq.

Among Dow components, Home Depot slumped 4.1 percent after its quarterly report disappointed some investors. Merck, which had leaped 13 percent in the previous session after a panel recommended returning its drug Vioxx to the market, fell 4.3 percent.

Only Verizon Communications managed small gains within the Dow.

March crude futures closed up $2.14 at $51.15 a barrel while April crude, now the front month contract, gained $2.41 to close at $51.42 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Crude last topped $51 in late October. See Futures Movers.

"When oil popped above $51, the market sort of gave up waiting for tomorrow's release of CPI numbers and people started to take whatever profits they had," said Robert Pavlik, portfolio manager at Oaktree Asset Management.

Concerns about inflation ahead of Wednesday's report on consumer prices in the wake of news of a surge in wholesale prices last week added to the negative tone of the market.
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