Just checked the stock market at 11:30 am (Pacific) and the DOW is down 176.00 and appears to be in a nose dive. NASDAQ and the S&P 500 are also dow.....NASDAQ at 45.00 and S&P down 23.45. What's your opinion..........is it the oil crisis or something else that's driving the market down?

-- Linda (lindasue1@earthlink.net), January 24, 2000

Answers

Noticed that oil was also down 47 cents to $27.74. Who knows what drives the markets anymore...

-- Powder (Powder47keg@aol.com), January 24, 2000.

As the market ascends into the thin ait of high valuations there are less and less people who are convinced it is all real. At some point there is a topping process and then those who are interested in getting out of the market earlier rather than later will start to move. This breaks the equilibrium and damages the sentiment of those who 'hold' stocks. They begin to sell and there is a cascading run..at a certain point there are no buyers.

The tug of war happening right now COULD be the topping process occuring.

-- ..- (dit@dot.dash), January 24, 2000.

Dear Dot Dash: I have a question. If the stockmarket tanks and you want to sell but can't find a buyer for your stock in company A. what happens to the price of your stock. Does it stay at the price of the last stock sold for company A.?

Thanks- L.

-- Lucy (windsng@...com), January 24, 2000.

Those that follow the herd off the cliff have no business in the market to begin with. Someone who sells because everyone else sells will probably sell at the wrong time. Those who go in to buy the shares of those who panic get incredible bargains. I just hope that most of the investors in the market will stop to think before they jump off with everyone else.

-- liu (lookitup@dictionary.com), January 24, 2000.

2:37pm CST....Dow down 316, NAS down 137, S&P down 44. An analyst on CNBC said buzz on the floor is the Atlanta fed's concern over interest rates. Is this just typical Monday blues? I guess the plunge doctors will weigh in tomorrrow to prop things back up.

-- Kyle (fordtbonly@aol.com), January 24, 2000.

Didn't we do this on January 3rd, the LAST time the Dow went below 11,000?

I guess it's back to DJIA = end of civilization, if the price of oil keeps being stubborn and going down, like it was today...

-- Same Old Story (here@we.go.again), January 24, 2000.

The price of any given stock is what the last buyer paid for it. Unless it is an incredibly thinly traded stock, there will usually be a buyer for it at some price. I guess, theoretically, if no one buys or sells a share of a particular stock when the market is in decline, that stock won't decline. In the real world however, someone will bid an offering price on a share of that stock, and a seller, looking to get at least some money out of the deal, will sell it. The stock's price will then be what that last bidder paid for it. If that is a price well below where the stock recently was, the value of all shares of that stock will drop accordingly.

This is, of course, a grossly over-simplified explanation. The real transaction would involve brokers, exchanges, banks, and electronic communication systems to make it happen.

-- rob minor (rbminor@hotmail.com), January 24, 2000.

I have to agree with powder. Have worked in the financial markets for years, yet I can't figure the recent activity out. :(

-- Honest Abe (HonestAbe@confused.com), January 24, 2000.