Market pessimism

A couple days went by without a mine closing, the "calm" was much needed, although no promises for next week, it could be just as bad. The week of Oct20-26 started as one of the worst in memory for the industry in a long time...Don't get me wrong the month has been terrible but hearing about all these people and friends of mine losing their jobs in such a short amount of time, that has been hard to take in. It was the week where the losses on the commodities market were finally going to start directly reflecting job losses.

Some of my friends have told me that I'm unfairly negative and pessimistic towards the market, we all knew the boom was going to end sometime, and most of us knew it would be sooner rather than later. The first thing to go in a downturn is the commodities and with it all related mining activity, if there's one thing we can be optimistic about it's that mining is also the first thing to return. Besides that, I can't find a good reason to be optimistic about anything money related right now, even my pickup truck is losing value by the day. I was so so wrong about the timing and scale of the crash though, it's hurting everyone. No matter who you are, you are being directly affected or know someone who is. If you're in the mining industry there are good odds you are very scared of your own job security right now, you're rethinking buying that car and passing on flying to Toronto for PDAC next year and other trips. That's going to be one hell of a depressing PDAC anyways...you don't want to go, trust me.

I read an article a week back (can't find it anymore) saying Jim Cramer should be fired for being so pessimistic towards the market, for saying that if you want to spend your cash in the next five years you should take it out of the market NOW. The guy said he should be fired for telling people that they should only invest or keep their money in now if they're willing to stick it for the long run. He said Cramer was causing panic and it was irresponsible for someone in his position to scream this out to the masses, adding that it was only helping the massive selloff. Why the hell should he not be pessimistic and tell people what he thinks? That's what NBC pays him for, he gives advice and opinions to investors who watch his show and in this particular case...he's probably right. The dude asking for him to get fired is one of those guys watching his job and money flushed down the toilet and he's looking for someone to blame. NBC doesn't pay him to be an investment broker who'll tell you the world is wonderful and everything will be alright, he's an entertainer who tells it how it is, take his stock market info with a grain of salt, he's wrong a lot (who isn't?) but you can't deny he's fun to watch.

I also seem to recall the outrage in August about his blowup at the Fed, people said he was overreacting and a drama queen, those people sure are quiet now. Check it out on YouTube, it's a good one.

Completely losing his cool, Cramer screamed that Federal Reserve Chairman "Bernanke needs to open the discount window... Bernanke has no idea how bad it is out there. He has no idea. No idea. I have talked to the heads of every one of these firms in the last 72 hours. My people have been in this game for 25 years and they are going to lose jobs, firms are going to go out of business. This is a different kind of market and the Fed is asleep. They're nuts. They know nothing. They have no idea what it is like out there. 14 million people took mortgages out in the last 3 years. 7 million of those were based on teaser or piggy back rates. They will lose their homes. This is crazy. I worked at fixed income at Goldman Sachs. This is not the time to be complacent. We have Armageddon in the fixed income market."