NY Times (Misleading?) Article: "Wall Street's Dead End"

Feb 26, 2011 4 Replies
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The Op-Ed article at

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me. I found its conclusions unsupportable and promotinghysteria. Excerpts:



"The number of companies listed on the [NYSE, AMEX and NASDAQ] peaked in 1997 at more than 7,000, and it has been falling ever since. It?s now down to about 4,000 companies, and given its steep downward trend will surely continue to shrink."



The author concludes, "Today, however, stock markets, once the bedrock of American capitalism, are slowly becoming a noisy sideshow that churns out increasingly meager returns. The show still gets lots of attention, but the real business of the global economy is inexorably leaving the stock market ? and the vast majority of us ? behind."



This seems to derive from the author's chatter at his blog

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Does anyone else think the author's conclusions are junk, designed to promote hysteria and so increase hits to his web site, raising advertising revenues etc.?



I swear to God I am going to write the Op-Ed editors and tell them to contact George (dapperdobbs) for some intelligent writing on the stock market.



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I

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I agree with you without any doubt. Typical attention getting behavior from authors. Trynig to find a nonexistent trend or invent a new buzzword.

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D

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"As of Dec. 31, 2008, NYSE Euronext has approximately 8,500 listed issues, a total global market capitalization of $16.7 trillion/?12.3 trillion and its equity exchanges transact an average daily trading value of approximately $153 billion/?113 billion."

It looks like similar data is available for NASDAQ (Google, courtesy of Messrs. Page and Brin - legitimate goodwill, there). It's a darned good topic to look into. I've read elsewhere that funds outnumber listed stocks, and that derivatives total $500-600 trillion (ten times world GDP). I believe most of U.S. GDP is sole proprietor, partnership, etc..Some of the data on sites like the above and the U.S. Treasury is fascinating - liberal arts majors going to town writing history, e.g. I believe Treasury has a very entertaining piece about the genesis of the corporation in England in the 1600's in a tea house where shippers hung out, and eventually came up with a Tea Company (shares in not just one, but in several ships).

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H

I believe in the "wall of worry" concept that says stocks climb a wall of worry. It's when the hysteria goes to good news that makes me feel sick.

Accordingly, I would be more inclined to write a big fat THANK YOU to the publication and appeal for more.

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E

I had to look up the meaning of "wall of worry" at

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If the articlecauses fewer people to participate in a "wall of worry" type stockrise, then I agree the article does a service.

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