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'The New Reality? Dow Slides To 5,000, Oil Dips To $50 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/08/the-new-reality-dow-slide_n_172925.html
Huffington Post/WSJ/Bloomberg News Marcus Baram March 8, 2009
09:39 PM

With blue-chip stocks selling for the price of a cup of coffee and unemployment rising, the U.S. economy seems to be heading for a new somber reality of diminished expectations and reduced circumstances.
And it just seems to be getting worse with some economists predicting dramatic drops in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the price of a barrel of oil in the coming weeks and months.
They predict that the Dow Jones Industrial Average, after months of massive losses, is heading in a downward spiral to the once-inconceivable 5,000.
The last time the Dow was so low was in November 1995.
As the Wall Street Journal reports:
Despite Friday's small gain, the Dow Jones Industrial Average marked its fourth consecutive week of losses as it tumbled through the 7000-point mark and spiraled to new 12-year lows. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index is trading below 700 for the first time since 1996.

As earnings estimates are ratcheted down and hopes for a quick economic fix fade, the once-inconceivable notion of returning to Dow 5000 or S&P 500 at 500 looks a little less far-fetched.
Some traders tell Bloomberg News that they predict that oil will soon drop to $50 a barrel, a stunning reversal after peaking at $147.27 in July 2008:
OPEC's record production cuts are draining the glut in world oil markets, leading traders to bet that $50 crude is two months away.

Ever since oil began its 69 percent plunge from a record $147.27 a barrel in July, traders have been looking for a bottom. Now that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries reduced supplies 13 percent since September, inventories are falling 1.4 million barrels a day, according to PVM Oil Associates Ltd., the world's biggest broker of energy trades between banks. OPEC will limit exports again when the group meets March 15, according to a survey by Bloomberg News.'