THE MARKET….Stocks are down today:
Worries about the corporate sector sent stocks on Wall Street lower again on Wednesday, with the Dow Jones industrials dropping more than 400 points before recovering slightly.
….The problems have appeared in a range of industries. The aviation giant Boeing saw profits fall 38 percent last quarter. Merck, the pharmaceutical company, posted a 28 percent drop in net income and will cut jobs. The North Carolina-based bank Wachovia, which was recently acquired by Wells Fargo, suffered a $23.7 billion net loss.
Stocks have been swinging around pretty wildly over the past few weeks as investors have responded to the drama of the credit crisis, but it’s worth keeping in mind that over the long term this is what really matters. If earnings reports stayed strong regardless of credit market problems, then the market would do fine. But that’s extremely unlikely to be the case. We’ve got at least a year of weak corporate earnings ahead of us, and that almost certainly means we’ve also got at least a year of declining stock prices ahead of us too. Main Street’s suffering is just starting.
