2008 September 29 « The Long Run Blog

Gambling America’s Future

Numeroligists should be very excited today. The Dow fell 777.68 points today and 777 is definitely an interesting number. It couldn’t be just a coincidence right? In fact, if you just round off that last digit, you get four 7′s. A client joked with me today “isn’t 7 lucky in craps?” It couldn’t have been a better set up since seven is both lucky and unlucky in craps depending on the situation. Today, the U.S. House of Representatives voted against the Paulson Plan we have discussed here which sent stocks tumbling by that interesting number. Incidentally, that fall represented 7% of the market’s value- a cool $1 Trillion. Since I did not intend to waste electronic ink espousing why numerology is bunk, I’ll go with the gambling analogy. Read more »

September 29, 2008 Posted by Brett | Credit Crisis | Credit Crisis | 3 Comments

About

Brett Spurr has been on and around Wall Street since the age of 19, nearly half a lifetime ago. He helped make investment decisions for a $15 billion mutual fund complex. While locking horns with CEOs was fun, he now runs a personal financial planning firm helping individuals navigate their financial lives. Brett is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER ™ certificant and investment manager by day and a full-time geek who delights in debating all things financial or economic.

Karl Mamer is host of The Conspiracy Skeptic podcast, a 12-part look at conspiracies of today and the not too distant past. Karl is also the world’s greatest living proponent of Franglais. He also likes to bait Nigerian Bank Scammers and hosted his own podcast about teaching English in Seoul, South Korea. Karl lives in Toronto, Canada and works as a senior technical writer to pay the bills.

Julio Guardado is a former tech CEO who after surviving a tech start-up during the dot com bust decided to join the dark side and become an investment banker. While wining and dining CEO’s (we call it “locking horns”) is great, he enjoys getting inside their heads and companies even more. Julio also runs RV Investor, a web site that specializes in the recreational vehicle industry. Julio lives in Silicon Valley.

Jon Blumenfeld has been on and around Wall Street since 1989, as a trader and researcher in interest rates and their associated financial products. Most recently he was an Interest Rate Strategist at Bear Stearns and Co., where he was named to Institutional Investor Magazine’s All-America Fixed Income Research team for Interest Rate Derivatives in 2007.

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