Guest Poet: The Great Stock Plunge

Another poetic gem from TMV’s favorite poet, Michael Silverstein, aka Wall Street Poet:

A concerted effort featuring huge infusions of money supplied by the Fed, highly focused buying orchestrated by Treasury officials that gave a positive skew to key averages, abetted by buying opportunity calls to individual investors by every stock broker from Panama to the Yukon, kept financial markets from total melt down recently. An impressive performance, but alas, one that can¹t be endlessly sustained. And since the underlying cause of market problems, a world maxxed out on debt, has not been addressed, a truly awesome market ³break² is inevitable.

When can we expect it? Probably October, traditionally the cruelest month for stocks‹unless a monster hurricane takes out Houston or Bush bombs Tehran before then. The following poem, rendered in the style of England¹s great curmudgeon of verse, Algernon Charles Swinburne, describes what might occur this October or thereabouts…

The Great Stock Plunge

Before the opening gong,
There’ll came to a new trading day,
News of a swoon in Hong Kong,
Fears that some bonds might not pay;

Profits that come with a warning,
Earnings, but sales that fell,
Inflation, again greatly spawning,
Rate hikes that will make debtors yell;

Firms crying out for new money,
Deals that fall through the cracks,
Quarterlies no longer sunny,
Hedge funds taking big whacks;

The Fed once again in the fore,
Will step up and bravely declare,
We won’t, this new crisis ignore,
Good times, we won’t let them impair;

With a flourish they’ll open the vaults,
And out will gush seas of cash,
That briefly check fears of defaults,
And give some new life to the bash;

Down deep, though, remains real doubt
That turn market players more fretful;
While their hands still hope to acquire,
Their guts sense a downturn most dreadful;

Then they’ll whine, “we have all been deceived,”
Cry out, “we must now all be saved,”
They will truly be woefully grieved,
But in truth, it is them, this road paved.

©2007 Michael Silverstein