October 13, 2003

Um, OK

Today, I found the following two headlines on the WSJ Online's front page. At one point, they were right next to each other, at the moment, they are separated by one other headline.

First:
Motorola reported third-quarter earnings that were essentially flat with a year ago, as average prices for its cellphones fell. The company released the results a day early to counter a downgrade by Moody's.

A bit further down:
The Dow Jones industrials rose 89.70 points to a 16-month high of 9764.38, helped by strong earnings news from Motorola.

Yeah, that makes sense. This is not the only time I heard this either. Marketplace also reported that the DJIA was up on good news about Motorola's earnings. How is "flat" good? How is a downgradge by Moody's good? Baffling, but that's right in line with the stock market lately. The dollar is tanking, job creation is anemic at best, consumers are in debt up to their eyeballs, inflation is once again with us, and the market rallies on. Mass delusion at it's best.

Posted by nicole at 07:59 PM