Prediction Update: Market Free Fall

As I said yesterday, the market was not going to like Obama's speech. Almost an hour into trading and the major indexes are all down significantly.

UPDATE: I had to put up this reader comment:

We are in a bear market. It is going to get a lot more ugly. When markets tank it can be decades before you get your money back. The 1960s Dow at 1000 did not get back to the 1000 level until the 1980s. The 1929 Dow Jones Index took almost a generation to recover the loss. Who knows how many decades will be needed for the Nikkei Index to recover. Right now it is all about wealth preservation, not speculation.

UPDATE II: Yahoo News makes it an official story: Stocks fall as Obama fails to deliver details

Yikes!

DOW: 7,114.77 -250.89 (3.41%) NASDAQ: 1387.71 -53.51 (-3.71%) S&P 500: 743.33 -26.72 (3.47%)

UPDATE: In 1929, Yale professor Irving Fisher said: "Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."

The modern day equivalent has to be this ridiculous book: Dow 30,000 by 2008!: Why It's Different This Time

UPDATE II: Major stock market indexes fall to 1997 levels

NEW YORK – Wall Street has turned the clock back to 1997. Investors unable to extinguish their worries about a recession that has no end in sight dumped stocks again Monday. The Dow Jones industrial average tumbled 251 points to its lowest close since Oct. 28, 1997, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index logged its lowest finish since April 11, 1997.

All the major indexes slid more than 3 percent. The Dow is just over 100 points from 7,000. "People left and right are throwing in the towel," said Keith Springer, president of Capital Financial Advisory Services.

Investors pounded most financial stocks even as government agencies led by the Treasury Department said they would launch a revamped bank rescue program this week. The plan includes the option of increasing government ownership in financial institutions without having to pour more taxpayer money into them.