I always try to see how many variations you can find of “The Scream” painting each day. At least in this blog, there’s a woman in the mix. Almost every picture of a broker with his hands covering his horrified face has been male.
For the past two months I’ve been wondering if the media has a library of photos of discouraged brokers from which they pull, or if they have to go out and snap a new one every day, in the name of journalistic integrity.
If I were a broker, the picture would be of me with my jean jacket over my head and then my hands on my face.
I worked for a brokerage firm while in college on breaks and I’ve seen variations of the horrified brokers but nothing like this. But the smart ones should have known that these days were coming. The market was way oversold. Very volatile. There’s that frantic selling that plunges the Dow into free fall in the last hour of trading then people snapping up some of the basement stocks. It’s interesting how the latest plunge is tied to 3Q reports which everyone knew were going to suck.
And as the market continues its descent, we’ll watch those wedding bands/rings on their fingers go the same way.