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Black Friday (1869)
Black Friday, September 24, 1869 also known as the Fisk/Gould scandal, was a financial panic in the United States caused by two speculators’ efforts to corner the gold market on the New York Gold Exchange.
Black Friday (1881)
The Eyemouth disaster was a severe European windstorm that struck the southern coast of Scotland, United Kingdom, specifically Berwickshire, on 14 October 1881. 189 fishermen died, most of whom were from the village of Eyemouth. Many citizens of Eyemouth call the day Black Friday.
Black Friday (1939)
The Black Friday fires of January 13, 1939, in Victoria, Australia, were considered one of the worst natural bushfires (wildfires) in the world, and certainly the single worst in Australian history as a measure of land affected.
Black Friday (1978)
Black Friday is the name given to September 8, 1978 (17 Shahrivar 1357 AP) and the shooting of protestors by security forces in Zhaleh (or Jaleh) Square in Tehran, Iran. The deaths and the reaction to them has been described as a pivotal event in the Iranian Revolution when any "hope for compromise" between the protest movement and the Shah's regime was extinguished.
Black Friday (2010)
“I believe it’s going to be the biggest Black Friday we’ve had,” Toys “R” Us Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jerry Storch said in a Nov. 24 telephone interview. “Everyone has been focused on decreasing prices and these prices may never be repeated.”
See Also:
The Full List of Black Fridays
Real Estate Newsletter Articles this Week: Existing-Home Sales Increased to
4.15 million SAAR in November
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At the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter this week:
[image: Existing Home Sales]*Click on graph for larger image.*
• NAR: Existing-Home Sales Increase...
17 hours ago
6 comments:
I'm really hoping that the S&P 500 can close above 1200 on Friday.
Two straight weeks of hovering just below it are ruining my ongoing Rubicon joke.
Consider this. I'm told that our economy is recovering. The S&P 500 first closed above 1200 on December 21, 1998. Is it really too much to ask that we return to that level 12 years later?
Happy belated Thanksgiving Day Mark!
Did you happen to read Mish's China's 'Economic Treadmill To Hell' post, and if so would you have any thoughts on it?
http://tinyurl.com/27jjspv
Do you recall if Chanos is saying whether or not PM's are in a bubble?
watchtower,
I pretty much agree with Mish on China. I'm not sure where I stand on Japan, but I tend to agree.
If Japan falls before we do (which I think is likely) then we are going to hopefully see that as our warning flag and therefore alter our course. Crossing fingers on that one.
As for Chanos, he did mention that he thought gold would be "insulated" from the pain. He made his comment when gold was about $1100 though (last December). Not sure what he thinks now.
Silver got crushed in the Great Depression. See here (pdf).
Silver peaked at $36,000 per metric ton in 1919. It hit a bottom of $9,000 per metric ton in 1932. It then bounced to $20,600 in 1935 but then fell once again to $11,300 in 1940. These days I am told it only goes up in price though. Go figure.
My take on it is that pain of a Chinese slowdown/collapse would be distributed this way.
iron ore -> copper -> silver -> gold
I really don't want any part of that chain. Could be wrong to think that way of course.
Further, the inflation adjusted price of gold was incredibly cheap heading into the Great Depression (just as it was heading into our dotcom bubble). I think that really helped insulate gold's price back then. I think the opposite is true this time.
See the chart within this link and look at the 1920s and compare to what's happening right now and see why I lean towards thinking that way.
One more thought...
Happy belated Thanksgiving to you as well! :)
Thanks for the feedback Mark, much appreciated!
watchtower,
If we hyperinflate or default on our debt I intend for this blog to serve as a warning to others. I will be just as financially ruined as most since I have done little to protect myself from those outcomes.
That said, if the market can truly stay irrational longer than I can stay solvent, then perhaps it can stay irrational longer than I can stay alive. I've been bearish for 6 years so far. I'm about 15% of the way there already. Woohoo! Sigh.
(I turned bearish when I was 40. I am now 46. If I assume that I live to age 80 then I'm about 6/40ths of the way there. For retirement planning purposes, I assume that I'll live longer than that though.)
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