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Apr. 25, 2005 I was up on the Eastern Shore Saturday at Eyre Hall, home of the Chairman of the NASDAQ Board, and it got me thinking about the stock market. Mostly it got me thinking about whether the market is going up or down at this point. The gardens of Eyre Hall, landscaping courtesy of the well-known English gardener, Donna H., were lovely, as the timing and the weather had been perfect, some flowers which usually would have bloomed and gone by now were still in full flower, and some which usually would bloom later came early, and all was gorgeous. A fortuitous meeting of the elements. It was a cool and cloudy day, perfect for walking and photographing. Most people don't realize that overcast days are better for flower photography. The office of the Chairman is on the water, a small cove off the Chesapeake Bay, and on the shelves were photos of him with Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Yasser Arafat, and others notable and notorious. But meanwhile, back at the ranch...where was I? Oh yes, yes. The stock market. Up or down? I think up. The price of oil has been a drag, but when adjusted for inflation, oil prices have been higher in the past and the market did OK. Inflation, once the oil prices are factored out, is still low. The small boosts in the interest rates by the Fed haven't added up to much. Interest rates are still low, and if the economy appears to be slowing, I am pretty sure they won't increase more. Despite some desperation bombings in Iraq, the terrorists appear to be steadily losing ground. The elections in Iraq appear to have quelled the anti-war nuts for now. Corporate profits have been coming in fairly strong. Except for Ford and GM, that is. These two companies are being laid low by HEALTH CARE COSTS, the prior executives having caved in to unreasonable union demands about health care for current AND RETIRED WORKERS. These costs are eating GM and Ford alive. And just when they had a decent car lineup, too. What a sad story. But to return to good news... A fellow passenger on a plane trip I recently took said that his business was booming and that in the past this presaged an economic boom by about 6 months. Yeah, sure, just hearsay, and he may have been full of hot air. But maybe not. All in all, the harbingers of economic springtime appear good. I expect the market to climb. In fact, I'm betting on it, having transferred some stockpiled cash into the market this weekend. We'll see, won't we? ------------ About the author Brooks A. Mick: 63-yr-old physician, still practicing medicine but retired from the US Army. Write just for the fun of it, but working on novel in the vein of Tom Clancy's politico-military genre. Email: brooks15@cox.net ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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