Originally Posted by Bucking Bar

There are a couple of named storms. Erin hit Corpus without much effect, but the market may sense hurricane season causing fuel supply issues.

Also, Wal Mart's reported that US consumers are simply tapped out due to increased energy costs and taxes. Their report was interesting because they illustrated a link between payday and shopping activity and many customers said they do not have any cash to shop until payday - folks are living paycheck to paycheck and just not making it.

I see this effecting the discretionary travel market more than the network carriers. With oil above $70 a barrell there isn't such a thing as a "low cost" or "discount" carrier - it is all flippin high cost with AirTran costing $600+ to fly cross continent, just like Delta. Fuel levels the playing field to some extent resulting in network carriers having an advantage. It is interesting also to watch AirTran's effort to become more of a network carrier with NWA trying to keep them out of their back yard. The effort is getting expensive either way.

So there is more to this than Countrywide mortgage. Like you, I found it odd that Countrywide threatened bankruptcy and Continental's stock fell off more sharply than the mortgage lenders - but Continental had a heck of a run and folks may have decided to take profits.

We have two highly inflationary factors upsetting the market - Energy and Taxes. The housing and liquidity bubble acted as a spring but now that has run its' course and is rebounding. This could cause energy prices to decline and help stabilize the market. The tax situation has to get worse. Congress and the Bush administration have been profligate spenders. Nothing really works to fix this problem, if they lower interest rates inflation will increase, if they continue dumping cash from the central bank, devaluation will occur causing more inflation and more of a transfer to a Euro-centric economy.