On the Uselessness of the Dow Jones Index

[Donnachaidh]

http://dirtyhippies.org/2011/03/29/on-the-uselessness-of-the-dow-jones-index/

The Financial Times reports on an existential crisis in the modern economy:

logger Dan Mirvish spotted an odd pattern: if Hathaway is in the news, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway stock jumps too.

“On the Friday before the Oscars,” he wrote, “Berkshire shares rose a whopping 2.02 per cent.” And the Monday after they shot up 2.94 per cent more. Coincidence? Mr Mirvish thought not, and pointed the finger at confused robotraders – the complex algorithms that execute 70 per cent of stock trades, sometimes by scanning news stories for trends.

Just imagine harried executives at struggling motor giant Ford, unexpectedly boosted by news of a new Indiana Jones sequel. Or Rupert Murdoch, pleasantly amazed that, even though Megan Fox turned down Transformers 3, the mere story boosted his holdings….

More at the link --

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[Zanzoobar]

2. The DJI is a baubble

It's a shiny bottle cap for magpies.

A combination of economic indicators must be used to determine that the experts are equally divided in their confusion, and that their diverse opinions are also equally based on their access to limited and partial information.

Thus, the rise of systems of technical indicators which many equity traders use in variable fashions to lose money, and convince their friends and acquaintances that they know stuff.

When one can confidently discuss Chinese candles sticks, iron crosses, and hiramis, one is assured of geometrically increasing the size of the hole in one's pocket.

Therefore, when one has been fleeced of one's belongings, the inevitable return to staring at the DJI and repeating the current number gives one hope that one is not the only sucker in the bunch and that one's worthless shares in ZZZZ Best Carpet Cleaning and Crazy Eddie's will ride the wave of pressure all the way to the top.

[99 Percent Sure]

3. Thank you. /eom/

[cbdo2007]

4. Almost everything was up on those two days....

how do they account for that???

Ha ha. Just another grossly uninformed stock thread on DU. What's new???