Originally written here by Brandon Backlin
Well, there it is… the Dow fell by 5 points today. It’s not a world changer, nor is it even a day changer. That’s pretty much a level-off compared to the recent small gains. What has investors miffed? FOXNBCBS points to the fact that plans indicate a freeze in discretionary spending instead of a cut. This doesn’t go well with what analysts were suspecting, a budget cut. Freezing will retroactively count as a cut in the future, but those in the stock market A) don’t care about the future (at least the short-term), and B) don’t trust the government. Not to mention; freezing discretionary spending will hardly do anything. Why not? Obama’s budget plan has built-in expansion for Social Security and Medicare, the two things we really need to tackle in relations to cutting spending.
So why doesn’t it matter? Well, there’s tentative rumblings that the New York Stock Exchange (starting with the Euronext division, which markets itself as the leading and most liquid equities exchange group, NYSE Euronext powers the exchanging world and is comprised of equities and derivatives exchanges across the United States and Europe which trade cash equities, futures, options, fixed-income and exchange-traded products.) is going to merge with the German stock company Deutsche Boerse; forming the largest exchange market in the world. In the deal, Deutsche Boerse would claim 60% of the merged companies, and Euronext’s CEO would become the new CEO. This would change all the dynamics of the stock market and make liquid currencies flow even easier between the two continents.