The Dow flattens: Good news or a flashing yellow light?
It’s been an unusual, if boring, week for the Dow Jones Industrial Average. It hasn’t gone up much or down much; in fact, it has spent the whole week in an exceedingly narrow range. Wednesday’s closing price of 8,739 is the lowest of the week; Thursday’s 8,770 is the high.
If the market closes in that range today, we’ll have spent seven days between 8,700 and 8,800, and most investors probably welcome the calm waters. After all, high volatility is associated with brutal bear markets like the one we had in 2008 and the early months of 2009, or in 2000-2002.
In looking back, though, the most recent flat-line periods I could find were in February 2007. The Dow spent seven days, between Jan. 31 and Feb. 8, between 12,600 and 12,700, and then spent five days, Feb. 14 to Feb. 21, between 12,700 and 12,800. A few days later, on Feb. 27, we had a 416-point drop and volatility returned with a vengeance.
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David Nicklaus has covered St. Louis business for more than 25 years. His column appears three days a week on the Post-Dispatch business page. 
Pointless banter….I wish I could have the minute back of my life I wasted reading…please report something of value!
I agree. Nicklaus must have been on a bender and needed to meet a deadline with something….anything!
Here is something to write about. The St. Louis City budget shortfall this year will be about 10 million dollars. Unpaid furloughs by city officials and workers will deal with only 3.5 million of that.
Yet Alderman Lyda Krewson has chosen this moment in a bad economy to propose a City/County smoking ban, the St. Louis City Smoke Free Air Act of 2009, now being considered by the Health and Human Services Committee.
Since Alderman Krewson proposed the smoking ban, a University of Wisconsin economist has estimated that a St. Louis City smoking ban would cut St. Louis City restaurant employment 1.1 percent and City bar employment 19.7 percent. And Federal Reserve economists have just released a study blaming the Illinois smoking ban for a twenty percent decline in Illinois casino revenues.
St. Louis City aldermen know that St. Louis City can’t afford a smoking ban right now, yet the pressure on them to impose one continues.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/2009/2009-027.pdf
Bill, good to see you again. I was afraid we were going to be denied your dogma-induced tirades because you died of lung cancer.
For every study that shows that businesses are hurt by smoking bans there are ten that show NO affect by such bans. And none of the studies shows what is most important - that non-smokers are winning their right back to clean air and the ability to go everywhere that smokers go.
If smoking inside public places was banned nationwide (as it should be and eventually will be) then this discussion will be a moot point.
Interesting that no other factors were weighed in their report Bill, such as economic conditions and remodeling efforts. But, hey, grasp at the straws while you still can. American’s right to clean air is not just at the end of smokestacks…