OK – Congress didn’t pass the bailout bill and the market tanked 777 points. Now what? Listening to all the talking heads on Bloomberg and MSNBC this morning before the market opened, it seemed to be all about who was to blame for the failure. But then, when the market opened, it jumped over 200 points! As I write this at 9 a.m., it’s up 298 points.

So what’s going on? Some analysts believe fear is driving the market, not rational thinking, and that astute buyers are flooding in right now to bottom feed on the over sold conditions of yesterday.  Also, many analysts believe Congress will in fact pass a bill later this week.

For the stock market for now, it’s wait and see.  But what impact does this have on our local market here in Ventura? NBC news said last night that the one day 777 point drop represented a $1.2 TRILLION loss in market capitalization, which was MORE than the $700 billion bailout proposed by the Administration.

That $$ loss deflated everyone’s 401(k) plan, CalPers retirement plan, CalSTRS retirement plan, etc. Real money was lost. Analysts I heard commented that when Main Street wakes up and hears that they’re losing real money, they’ll demand leadership from Congress.

It’ll be interesting to see if on Thursday the same plan gets put forward again, or if it’ll be modified. Stay tuned!