Green money, green placemats

On Friday, the Dow was up, NASDAQ was down, and the S&P went sideways. According to "The Economist", analysts from Goldman Sachs in New York think this will be an up year for the market because of the growth in Brazil, Russia, India and China,while analysts for Societe General in France think it will be a down year because of difficulties in the economies of the Euro-periphery (Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland).

CNN Money reports that nearly half of the companies in the Dow Jones industrial average are scheduled to release quarterly reports this week, and expectations are very high for stronger-than-anticipated profits and sales. The economy has supposedly been showing signs of strength recently, with many economists raising their forecasts for 2011 . None of this will necessarily make any difference to the direction of the markets.

Government stimulus programs fade are supposed to be the origin of all this happiness, yet "If it turns out that the economy needs another round of government aid in the form of liquidity, I think you'll start to see the market decline into the summer as investors send a message to the Fed," according to an investment guru.
So much for the opinions of experts.

I can't imagine who these "investors" are, or why anyone would pay attention to any message they would send. I mean, except that loads of money are apparently flowing into and out of one thing or another according to the whim of the computers talking to each other in parking lots in New Jersey. (See my blog on Canadian banks & high speed trading.) I am going back to making quilted green placemats from scraps.