Ian Royle

These are peculiar times.  The TSX fall to 2004 levels because oil fell to 2006-07 levels.  Wierd huh.  The rate cut is half of what analysts expected and stocks fall.  Half the economic stimulus expected translates into a reversal of the rally of the last two days.  So had analysts gotten the half point they expected stocks would have gone up?  Really this is a really dumb thing to involve oneself.  Trying to predict which stocks are going up and which are going down.  And it’s funny too that I have never met a speculator in the stock market.  They all day trade, but they are all long term.  It’s never them that need a bailout, always someone else.  So why is a .25% cut in the overnight lending rate better than a 0.5% cut?  Because the analysts were wrong and the result was a deflationary effect on stocks.  It pushed them down a little further and prevented buyers from becoming exhuberant for the day on a nothing announcement and prevented the derivative markets short sellers taking advantage.  Having more sellers show up in the market place means more people are collecting cash to pay off debt (hopefully) and a little bit more of the cost of the past many years is paid back.  By the way, I think short selling should be illegal myself.  Where else in society can you “borrow” someones property without asking, sell it and then replace it before they know it is gone and not be charged with theft.  I have heard that there is a way to prevent this but I don’t know how yet.  Even plus or minus less than one hundred.