Awful: One of the largest earthquakes in history spawned a tsunami that devastated the east coast of Japan. I have a friend living on the west coast, and coworkers in Hawaii and Guam. The tsunami is scheduled to hit the west coast of the U.S. around 11-11:30 a.m.
This is why I’ll never buy stocks again: I totally do not understand the market. Now, I get that the Saudis cracking down heavily on protests today is a good thing for oil prices, because an unstable Saudi Arabia will utterly devastate the market. But I don’t understand why Japan’s shutting down its refineries in the wake of the tsunami caused oil prices to drop. You would think, logically, that it would cause speculators to bet that oil prices are going to go up again. And here’s what an analyst says:
“The earthquake is having a psychological impact on the market in triggering a rise in risk aversion,” said Carsten Fritsch, an analyst at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt. “The effect is also physical, in that oil demand from Japan could temporarily be lower.”
Um. Japan is really not all that big a consumer of oil compared to, say, China. I really, really don’t get this stuff.
The tsunami hits Hawaii: They had plenty of time to prepare, so they should be all right, except for property damage.
Okay, a non-tsunami news brief: Worrying is so stressful, here’s a funny story: Ohio sent a woman a letter saying that she’d be getting a tax refund of $200 million. Of course, it was a software glitch. The woman laughed when she read the letter. I’d have scanned it and posted it online.
Thank heaven for Facebook: My former teaching assistant, who now teaches English on the southwest coast of Japan, is safe and sound. I sent out a friend request when I started writing this post, and it’s already been answered.