Bill DeShurko

For decades the iconic bull of Wall Street has symbolized the spirit of the American entrepreneur. Risking their own wealth to make fortunes by creating new businesses with the help of the financiers of Wall Street. Hard charging traders and investors became legendary making and losing fortunes. The likes of Jesse Livermore, George Soros, Jim Rogers and even Jordan Belfort, made famous by Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie “The Wolf of Wall Street”.

This past Friday the NASDAQ exchange dropped about 2.5% in a day. Let me remind readers, the NASDAQ is the home of the technology leaders Amazon, Face Book, Google, Apple and many more. The “Teck Wreck” from 2000 through 2002 saw the NASDAQ drop 90% in value!!! Since the NASDAQ is typically where growing and emerging companies list their stocks, the index is typically very volatile as many stocks are very sensitive to the ability of the company to generate an ever increasing stream of earnings. Any risk to these earnings can cause volatility. So when the market dropped 2.5% on Friday I yawned, went out and played golf and went about my normal weekend activities.

The financial pundits had a very different reaction. I saw and heard comments like: “Slammed”, from the Wall Street Journal; “Sell off Wrecks Tech” at theStreet.com; and “Rout” at http://www.MarketWatch.com. The TV media was in a frenzy with topics on hedging, managing portfolios in a crash, debates on whether to sell and go to cash or not…

Again, the NASDQ only dropped 2.5%! And it was just one day! (editor’s note: one day does not create a trend).

I was left a little embarrassed. And would like to suggest that maybe the Wall Street Bull be replaced by a new figure that better represents the new modern “Wall Street”…

          ….the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man!