# The Dow Jones - Is the sky falling?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dow-jones-is-the-sky-falling/82230>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 17, 2001, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dow-jones-is-the-sky-falling/82230 "2001-09-17T19:02:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![phartizan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba8739/32.png) [@phartizan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phartizan)\
**Post date:** [September 18, 2001, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dow-jones-is-the-sky-falling/82230/21 "2001-09-18T00:15:17Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by ElwoodCuse \*  
> \*\*I don’t know much at all about the stock market, but wouldn’t now be the time to buy and get stocks at bargain prices? I mean, in the short term you might take a hit but as time goes by won’t the stocks just go back up again? \*\*

I don’t think stocks have dropped nearly enough to buy. A couple of weeks ago, one authority said that the S&P 500 (which covers a lot more than just the few in the Dow Jones) was 30-40% over-valued in terms of historical price/earnings ratios.

In any case, focussing on the day-to-day point change is one of the silliest things people do.

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**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\
**Post date:** [September 18, 2001, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dow-jones-is-the-sky-falling/82230/22 "2001-09-18T15:13:28Z")

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Not all stocks dropped, defense stocks rose.

" Remember also that the Dow is only 30 companies,"

Other stock indexes were also down.

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**Author:** ![John\_Bredin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@John\_Bredin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Bredin)\
**Post date:** [September 18, 2001, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dow-jones-is-the-sky-falling/82230/23 "2001-09-18T19:02:01Z")

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“This is really stupid but I’ll ask. What about trains. I mean if you have 3 or 4 hours checkins at the airlines and say St. Louis is 5 hours from Chicago, couldn’t one infer from this it would be just as easy to take a train. … I got a lot of money I’ve been waiting to invest. I wonder how low the trans stocks can go.”

Great idea, but financially there’s not much one can do with it. The intercity passenger trains are operated by Amtrak, a government-owned corporation. Amtrak pays the freight railroads to use their tracks, but those payments are a tiny fraction of what the railroads make from carrying freight.

The main way that the railroads are, or may be, profiting from the recent disaster is that the mails are not being carried on passenger airplanes, and are being diverted to trucks and trains. IIRC, this is a temporary measure and the domestic airmail will go back to being carried in the bellies of airliners again.

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