Random Thought: Confidence is Like the Stock Market

For the past few days, I've been worried my primary bank, Washington Mutual, was going to collapse. So I've been keeping tabs on the financial industry and the news that WaMu might auction parts of the company. A little nerve-racking. Not exactly confidence inspiring to be sure.

Then this morning, I read "Washington Mutual Stock Soars." Apparently, Thursday night the Fed and other major central banks around the world starting talking about putting $180 billion into global money markets to keep the credit crisis from worsening--that coupled with the fact that Federal officials are "reportedly" making plans to assume the banks' bad debt sent the market back into black. Sounds like rumors of the positive were enough to push folks back to the money market (and to save my bank).

I don't know anything about the money market. But it does appear that even in stocks, a little positive reinforcement can go a long way towards confidence.