Down We Go Again: Faint Hope Vanishes On Wall St.

[Purveyor]

(01-14) 15:19 PST New York (AP) --

So you thought Wall Street might be out of the woods? Think again.

A surge of optimism that started a market rally late last year, mercifully quieting the stock market's stomach-churning volatility, has vanished as economic recovery recedes further onto the horizon.

On Wednesday, stocks took a dive reminiscent of the terrifying jumps and drops of last fall, with the Dow Jones industrials falling more than 300 points before closing down 248.

It was the Dow's biggest point drop since Dec. 1 and the first string of six straight down days since early October. The Dow is still 9 percent higher than its November low, but the bumpy decline feels all too familiar.

"It's a good instinct to start a New Year off with optimism," said Art Hogan, chief market analyst at Jefferies & Co. in Boston. "But unfortunately that tends to fade in the harsh light of reality."

So what happened?

Holiday sales turned out to have been worse than expected, the jobless rate exceeds 7 percent for the first time in 16 years, the global economy is eroding faster and corporations from Alcoa to Intel to Wal-Mart have disappointed investors.

MORE...

AP: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/01/14/national/a144443S36.DTL

[Xipe Totec]

1. I never thought that

There's usually a euphoric rush in the first weeks of the year, then it tanks.

I'm still waiting before jumping in again.

[sendero]

2. Anybody that bought into that sucker rally..

.... should save their money and stay out. The dow is going down at least 2,000 more points, at LEAST.

[Purveyor]

3. Back in Jan. 08 I was ridiculed when I predicted the DOW would go as low as 7500.

Now I'm willing to revise my prediction to a DOW 5000 before the end of '09.