Stock Pain Continues: Bear Market Arrives
The Dow is down more than 20 percent from its October high.
July 2, 2008— -- Investors looking for some good news as the stock market headed into the second half of the year were disappointed today as the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 166 points and officially entered the much-dreaded bear market territories.
It was only back on Oct. 9 when the Dow hit its all-time record high close of 14,164.53 points.
The Dow closed today at 11,215, down more than 20 percent from the October high, officially making this a bear market.
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Driving down stocks today was yet another new record for oil and a poor report showing poor factory orders. Oil closed at $143.57 a barrel today, up $2.60 in just one day.
Also leading to today's sell-off was fear from investors about tomorrow's government report on employment in June and an analyst report downgrading automaker GM, sending its shares plummeting.
Nobody needed this official designation to know things are bad on Wall Street.
It has been a miserable 2008 for stocks, thanks to a bad housing market, credit problems that have shaken the nation's largest banks, skyrocketing oil prices and declining automobile sales.
The first half of the year was the worst since 1970 for the Dow and last month was the worst June on record since 1930 -- yes, during the Great Depression -- for the Dow and the much broader Standard & Poor's 500.
The Dow fell 10.2 percent in June. It was the worst monthly performance since September 2002, when it fell 12.4 percent.
"This feels like a recession to us," said Art Hogan, chief market analyst for Jeffries and Co. "We certainly have consumers losing confidence. We certainly have a bear market. If oil continues to go higher, stocks will go lower."
Hogan said that oil is the "main concern of the financial sector." Basically, as oil prices go up, stocks go down. When oil declines, stocks rebound.
This downturn is very different in his mind than 1930.
"In June of 1930, you're looking at a market that was going down 80 percent," Hogan said. "Our economies are structurally different. Are we in a depression? No. There are a lot of things you can't compare in our global economy, compared to the domestic economy in 1930."
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So how concerned should we be?
Not as much as the media would make you think, Hogan said, noting that 94 percent of the people who can work are employed.
