US Futures Already Heading Lower, As Trichet's Hawkish Comments Reverberate

[girl gone mad]

This crisis is not so easily contained..

Update 10:50: Shanghai is off 2.4%.

Update 10 PM ET: The Nikkei has opened sharply lower. Commodities are selling off again, and the US selloff is get worse, with the Dow now off 50.

As for some other markets: Korea is off 2.75%. Sydney is off 2.3%.

Original post: With about 14 hours to go before opening bell in NYC, US futures are already heading lower.


It appears that the Jean-Claude Trichet interview with Der Spiegel (which we touched on here) is reverberating. If you read through the whole thing, it basically boils down to: We refuse to go into quantitative easing mode, which -- given the waning confidence in European banks -- is a very serious statement. He's sounding more and more like Bernanke in the early days of our crisis (prompting Jim Cramer to go on his famous "Bernanke has no idea!" rant).

It is apparently the dream of central bankers to be the hawks that hold the line. In the end, the market forces their hand.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/us-futures-already-heading-lower-as-trichets-hawkish-comments-reverberate-2010-5#ixzz0o9eJUy4d

Interesting times.

[flamingdem]

1. What is the simple explanation for not wanting to go into quantatative easing mode?

Inquiring minds want to know but are not up on the terms.

[Mind_your_head]

2. hehe.....

on edit to add: "Run for your lives!!!" (Or not).

[DJ13]

3. I bet the US futures will be green (or close to it) by the open

Im trying hard not to say anything about government sponsored manipulation, but.........

[Lasher]

4. It seems to be working that way.

Or the US market opens red, then closes green. But Asia is tanking bigtime right now. We'll see.

[aquart]

5. Okay, that's it! Red? Green? Traffic lights?

[Lasher]

6. Hee hee, sorry aquart.

Red = negative territory. Or in the language of actual humans, losses.

Green = gains.

Kinda like the terms, 'in the red' and 'in the black' except black is green nowadays. We started seeing gains colored green when we got these fancy computers and everything.

[aquart]

9. When did black become green? Is that a good thing?

[Lasher]

10. Back in the olden days, you could get typewriter ribbon that was 2 colors.

Those ribbons were half black and half red. You could shift from black to red if you wanted to type red numbers. Have you ever noticed that shift lock does not affect numbers like it does the rest of the characters on your keyboard? Shift lock is how you changed to red numbers.

And so if you wished you could type some monetary values in red to illustrate losses. Minus signs were (and still are) also used, in addition to the red color. I have seen ribbons that had more than these two colors but they were rare.

We are no longer limited to two colors when reporting financial gains and losses. Losses are still in red. But gains are in green, to help differentiate them from the rest of the text on a page. If there is no gain or loss, that is usually shown in black.

And yes, it's a good thing. We are more able to discern our plight as we pore over our computer screens, which are the equivalent of yesteryear's ledger sheets.

[aquart]

11. Thank you!

[Po_d Mainiac]

8. The squid may be net short at the open

Which puts Ben is a tough spot...
:FRSP:

[Lasher]

12. Well now.

Between the two of us we seem to be quite clairvoyant. Let me know if you get an offer to replace Jim Cramer.

[DJ13]

13. I would need a lot of meth to be as spastic as Cramer

:hi:

[madrchsod]

7. since the stock market is basically a zinga game with real money

it`s really hard to take the markets seriously. there`s no reality it`s just the manipulation of the upside and downside. the 1000 pt crash the other day has finally revealed the extent of the manipulation.

until someone has the balls to actually regulate the speculators and traders everyone is guessing