Stocks Go "Crash! BANG! (tinkle)!" Bears Go "Yum!" Bulls Go "MOO?!"

Stocks spiraled down on Thursday in a broad-based sell-off that began with the opening bell. Bad economic news combined with growing sentiments among professional investors that the economy is sick pushed equity issues into territory not seen in several years. In the early afternoon, the bulls who had not been taken to the meat house tried to stage a rally, but the tiny little flowers of joy they planted amid the growing pile of cow patties were quickly stomped into sawdust and turned into dried flower arrangements to decorate Hell's special Room of Republican Recessions. The index of the stocks of 30 huge industrial companies lost one and one-fifth percent, while the index of stocks of 500 big companies lost exactly one percent. The NASDAQ composite lost one and two-fifths percent.

Today's toilet flushing was fueled initially by a Commerce Department report that business inventories rose by half-a-percent, extending an upward-sloping trend line that now stretches five straight months.

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The Johnson Redbook, published by Johnson Research, samples same-store sales from the retailers that dominate the department stores sector.

  This, coupled with yesterday's latest Johnson Redbook report of eroding same-store retail sales, pointed investors toward the exits at the stock market, and money began to flow toward the safer bond market, where prices moved upward through the day on surging demand for securities less volatile—and therefore less risky—than the stock markets could offer. The doom-and-gloom on Wall Street was not to be abated by what otherwise would have been positive news about oil prices slumping back toward the $50 per barrel mark.

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Some market observers believe that, once overall sentiment of investors turns up or down, news that confirms the sentiment fuels market reactions, but news contrary to the sentiment is largely ignored.

  Many investors seem to have determined that the economic damage of four years of fiscal mismanagement by the ruling political party in Washington has already been done, and any good news from day to day simply gets swept aside in bearish overall market sentiment. As the index of 30 industrials slides ever closer to the 10,000 point level, more investors may see an inevitable, long-term, bear market setting in and sell out of stocks, thereby increasing the downward momentum stock prices are experiencing.

With the U.S. House of Representatives today passing tough bankruptcy reform legislation, formerly wealthy Wall Street investors may find themselves on the rack with poorer people having financial difficulties. More important, however, will be how the neo-conservative radicals explain why privatized Social Security accounts, wherein workers invest retirement savings in stocks and bonds, are going to provide any kind of security when stock portfolios are suffering massive losses and have been for as long as the Republicans have been in office. It remains to be seen if President Bush will go so far as to promote his desired destruction of the public pension system by telling voters that his plan will ultimately work as long as people stop voting for Republicans.