Easy come…

Easy go.

“The house doesn’t beat the player. It just gives him the opportunity to beat himself.”
-Nicholas Dandalos

Blue chip Citigroup, a component of the S&P 500 which has the world’s largest financial services network spanning 107 countries with approximately 12,000 offices worldwide, looks pretty ugly:

Some of the most conservative investors I know bought this stock to hold forever – “buy and hold.” Ouch.
Some of the best traders I know – the HCPG – say the “fate of the market, short-term, rests on this stock.”
From wikipedia:

At all times Citigroup used elaborate mathematical risk models that looked at mortgages in particular geographical areas, but never included the possibility of a national housing downturn, or the prospect that millions of mortgage holders would default on their mortgages. Even after Bear Stearns ran into serious trouble in summer 2007, Citigroup decided the possibility of trouble with its CDO’s was so tiny (less than 1/100 of 1%) that they excluded them from their risk analysis.

Of the 6974 stocks that I keep in the database – which should include most stocks on the NYSE, Nasdaq and AMEX that don’t have a period or hyphen in their symbol – 975 made a new ALL-TIME closing low today. Ouch.
update: Actually, one of my scripts was not updating correctly, and so this number is off – it turns out there were less lows.

Yes, real estate investment trusts aren’t doing so well. But what is these days? Born2code recommended GGP to add to the uglycharts posts:

GGP was one of the 975 stocks that made a new all-time low today.

If PLD is any indication, real estate investment trusts must not be doing well lately.

ProLogis made a new all-time low today, along with 885 other stocks in the database.

The great stock market crash of 2008:

Wow, 224 new all-time lows. That’s the first time I have ever recorded anything over 200 since I have been keeping track way back almost exactly two years ago on March 18 2006. Usually when I have a high number of all-time lows (like a new record like this), it is often near a market bottom. What about this time? Or is this a real bear market? Are we to expect more record all-time lows on a continual basis? If I had to guess, I would stick with the pattern and say we are near a low point, but it is hard to fight a trend.
Here are a couple of ugly charts from the new all-time lows list:
RH Donnelley Corp. (RHD)

RHD publishes the yellow pages. Yeah, the actual book.
US Airways Group, Inc. (LCC)

My guess is the high fuel prices.

Man, what happened to BIDZ? Ouch. Everything looked absolutely perfect until those two fateful days at the end of November – new highs, nice earnings growth. And then WHAM! Just like that.

I guess this report by Citron Research was the cause.

Ouch. The one-time momentum stock, FMD, made a new all-time low yesterday.

Michelle called this one on November 13.

Ouch. The momentum stock, VMW, has lost its mojo and is down almost 50% this month.

Breaking through $75 is pretty serious. How low will she go?
To me, it looks like new all-time lows may be tested.