Friday, December 19, 2008

Three cheers for the auto bailout?

When I look at the stock market news today, it says "Stocks up on auto bailout announcement." Last week when Congress decided it just might listen to the vast majority of Americans who said they oppose the bailout, the financial news said "Stocks down on Congressional opposition to auto bailout". So here's a question I honestly don't know the answer to:

Why would the market be for an auto bailout when voters are overwhelmingly against it?

I can think of a few possible answers.
1) It's not, but the financial press always has to come up with a simple one-line reason why stocks go up or down on any given day.
2) Market traders really believe the auto bailout will be a good thing overall for the stock market/the economy/America's National Security.

I'll posit that #1 is maybe 55% likely. Tim or someone else with more financial knowledge than me could set me straight. If #2 is correct, why is it? Theoretically, "the market" equals "most voters", given the ubiquity of stock ownership nowadays. Although, since the vast bulk of trading is done by pension funds, hedge funds, mutual funds, etc that "ubiquity" is probably more in the realm of ownership (as in, "I own mutual funds in my 401k") rather than trading power (as in, "Sell $150M of GM and F and buy APPL. I don't like this bailout news").

I'm willing to be convinced that traders really do believe the malarkey about the auto industry's importance to the economy, but this farce about it being responsible for 10% of the country's workforce is crap.

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