The stock market is, like, lame.

I watched the Enron documentary on Monday, and what struck me most about it was the fact that the analyst and stock brokers were all so excited about this company whose numbers were not adding up. This reminded me of a lot of the hype around companies in the late nineties, when a lot of firms without a viable business plan were attracting tons of investors simply because they looked sexy.

I was listening to the APM marketplace podcast this morning, and they talked about how the stock market went down this morning, mostly because investors were spooked about iran.

So much of what I hear about the stock market has to do with how traders feel or how they react to news. It doesn't seem to necessarily have to do with reality. In the same way, it seems like some of the ways in which companies increase their stock price don't necessarily have to do with the health of the companies ie downsizing. There is this intense pressure to look good on your quarterly reports, and I wonder if that is to the detriment of the long-term success and viability of the company.

I don't know a lot about how the stock market works or how traders work. What I do know is that traders and the corporations they trade in have an enormous impact on the rest of the world, and I don't get the feeling that their movements and actions are calculated on any far-reaching or long-term plans. They seem to react to feelings, and be solely focused on the short-term. Sucks for the rest of us.
pst