Stock/shock market

Editor:

In the first eight trading days of the month, the Standard and Poor’s 500 index (the largest 500 stocks on the N.Y. Stock Exchange) has lost 20 percent.

Since the beginning of the year SP-500 is down 39 percent. Financial Stocks are down 46 percent. This past week the market has lost the most value on record, surpassing the previous record in 1933.

I am a retired financial executive and financial planner.

I have a CFP (Certified Financial Planner) and RIA (Registered Investment Adviser) certification. I have been following the stock market closely for over 35 years.

I watch CNBC every day and listen to many of their commentators. The vast majority of them have been saying that we are “at or near a bottom; stocks are a great value, by low sell high” etc.

Many of the brokerage houses have been advocating the same. In my opinion they are all wrong and if you are still in this market you’ve got a lot more hurt to experience.

The stock market has become a casino. It is only appropriate for professionals and it’s become extremely challenging for them.

What has caused this conundrum?

The deregulating of markets by the current administration.

When there is money involved, greed will take over. Banks were rewriting ridiculous mortgages that could never be paid.

They packaged them into bundles and sold them to Wall Street.

Fannie Mae (FNMA) and Freddie Mac (FRDMAC) were guaranteeing them and paid their executives hundreds of millions of dollars for doing such a good job. (more greed).

President Bush and Secretary Paulsen have been authorized to spend $700 billion to save Wall Street.

Paulsen has given $80 billion to AIG (largest insurance company in the world).

Recently AIG asked for an additional $37 billion. Thinking $700 billion will do the job is like sending a boy to put his finger in the dyke in New Orleans.

There are trillions of dollars in this pile of garbage. No one can come up with an accurate number. Some say $55 to $60 trillion.

I have a rule of thumb that when a company’s stock falls below $5.00 a share, they are likely to go bankrupt.

General Motors has fallen to $4 and change and Ford is a little over $2.00. Who would ever have thought we would see this in our lifetime?

I believe that we are heading into a depression that will be the worst since the 1930s.

Get ready, folks, “you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

Ray Kirby, Green Valley