Is it my imagination, or is Maria Babblearoma's voice cracking and quivering as she rattles off the bad news?

I think that if I had a voice stress analyzer it'd be off the charts.

"Once again we're facing a real selloff today..."

-- Ron Schwarz (rs@clubvb.com.delete.this), January 04, 2000

Answers

She does have a quiver in her voice.

Selloff of stocks first day after most returned to work for the first time since rollover.

Maybe all is not well in small business America.

-- Johnny (jljtm@bellsouth.com), January 04, 2000.

This bull has but *days* to live - if even that.

-- Me (me@me.me), January 04, 2000.

PPT tryin to find the handle now, and it LOOKS slippery.

C

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), January 04, 2000.

The 'dip buyers' or PPT are rushing in for all those 'bargains' right now. Won't work - not this time - not for long.

The individual/daytrading investor cannot hold this market up. Any buying by PPT will be absorbed by smart/big money exiting. Remember, there are Billions and Billions of $'s in paper profits waiting to be 'actualized'.

By definition, most people *can't* get out. Think about it. It's not that they *won't*. They literally *can't*. No one, anywhere, has enough money to buy the shares from them.

-- Me (me@me.me), January 04, 2000.

What a chuckle! I thought the exact same thing myself this morning!

-- meg davis (meg9999@aol.com), January 04, 2000.

YAHOO quote gettin hammered hard enough to bog down their server at 1008 est.

Watch the day traders go balistic.

C

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), January 04, 2000.

Caution - caution there. We don't know the future ..... if you have money - and expect a fall, sell now. If now, just watch and be polite.

But be polite. 'Tis a polly trait to gloat, smear, and get obnoxious over another person's opinion .... and their failures are not worthy of your previous excellent actions to prepare you and your family for uncertainty and potential failure.

-- Robert A Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), January 04, 2000.

At approx 9:20 AM EST, I turned on CNBC and there was Maria B on the floor of the NYSE, mouth at 100 MPH, breathlessly reporting on the "Internet bug". Wow, was I scared. But I misunderstood. Maria was actually talking about the Internet "buzz" due to some analyst's upgrading of Yahoo to a target price of $600./sh. Get it while it's cheap.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), January 04, 2000.

You are a class act, Robert. I wish everyone on this forum would be "polite."

-- JoseMiami (caris@prodigy.net), January 04, 2000.

Fasten your seatbelts! I still think the DOW is going to drop into the 8000s before this qtr is over.

-- (Ladybuckeye_59@yahoo.com), January 04, 2000.

Friends:

Remember prior to the rollover there was some talk of the market being pumped up by funds coming in from overseas seeking the American "safehaven"? Since "nothing happened" (as far as the media is concerned), those funds could be whizzing back from whence they came.

Watch foreign markets. If they rise as ours falls......well?

-- Anita Evangelista (ale@townsqr.com), January 04, 2000.

The plunge started today in Europe, with nearly all the indices nosediving prior to NYC market opening.

-- Ron Schwarz (rs@clubvb.com.delete.this), January 04, 2000.

Robert- I sometimes mention "forum regulars that I really respect". You have always been one of them, and today you are once again showing me why you are in this select few. Thanks for your kind advice that all should heed.

on de rock

-- Walter (on de rock@northrock.bm), January 04, 2000.

I have a feeling that what we are seeing is the people "in the know" are seeing the problems that their businesses are facing, and so, realizing that the drop in their stock is coming they are selling while they can still make a profit. Ironically, their sell-off will likely fuel the "crash"

-- murdonstaf (stafford@1st.net), January 04, 2000.

Even if some people want to get out now, it might prove difficult. When my husband went through a downsizing in his company and was laid off mid-summer '98, we asked for our 401K. We were told that we were just a couple of days too late for that quarter and would have to wait until the beginning of the next quarter for withdrawal, Three months is a long time to watch your money when you want it out.

-- Kenin Marble (kenin17@yahoo.com), January 04, 2000.

CNBC was definitely interesting theatre this AM.

Mark Haines tried to get that analyst from (where? Stein Roe?) to say nice things and not be so "gloomy", and the analyst quietly declined and went on talking about a possible 30% correction and such.

Interview with Byron Wien from Morgan Stanley about his bearish "Surprises for 2000" no doubt caused some consternation in the control room and elsewhere.

And yes, Ms. Bartiromo certainly seemed a bit "under-the-gun" on this very "Dow-n" morning.

I also noted with some amusement that commercial where we see a heart-warming scene of a father passing on to his son a valuable skill: day-trading. Now them's family values, friends!

Here's the latest from a sometime-guest of Squawk Box: the very telegenic and contrarian Bill Fleckenstein -- Link

On borrowed time?... Last but not least, I want to share something that Dennis Gartman wrote late last week when I was out. It is the perfect period piece to capture the mood of what is really going on. To any sane person, it should be frightening; but then again, anyone who's frightened isn't having any fun. And those who are not frightened are making gobs of money speculating their heads off. Here's what Dennis said:

"As a final aside for the year, we went to our local branch bank yesterday to transact some business [Ed. Note: we actually got some cash for the Y2K `turn'...just in case!], and spent some time chatting with the branch manager. She does not know what business we are in, so when we asked her if she'd seen any increase in personal loans she replied out of hand that indeed she had. Indeed, the personal loan demand at her branch had escalated rather substantively.

"She then proffered that the sole reason for the sharp rise in personal loans was the investment in the stock market. She said that local doctors, lawyers, farmers, auto dealers... all of the leading figures of the local economy (and their wives) had been in recently to borrow money to `put into the market.' We asked her how long this had been going on, and she said that the branch had been making personal, signature loans like that for some while, but that the demand had really escalated in the past several months and has really become `hot' in the past several weeks. She wondered if it was too late for her to join in the market's enthusiasm! We said, `We don't know,' and left bemused and afraid.

"It is perhaps not new news, but we find it odd that the public is borrowing money on signatures without collateral (other than CDs and/or sizeable demand deposit accounts) that is then used to buy stocks, very probably upon margin. The leverage is immeasurable, for the public is apparently `Reg-T'ing' money that it has already borrowed with nothing down. She said that those who've been borrowing the most indicated that they `could get more out of the market than the interest charge,' and considered it unwise not to take advantage of the circumstance.

"Friends and clients, if this is not rampant, `tulip-bulb'-like speculation of the worst sort, we've no idea what is. Of all of the things that we've read about, heard about and discussed at length concerning the mania that is the U.S. stock market, this is the most manic of all. When speculation comes to small-town southern Virginia, it is rampant and it is dangerous. We have at this point said enough."

"For your safety, we do ask that you please keep your hands and feet inside the ride at all times..."

-- DeeEmBee (macbeth1@pacbell.net), January 04, 2000.