Stock Market Reaction to Vegas Shooting
Sadly, today the arguably the worse shooting happened in Las Vegas today. This causes the whole gun debate to start up all over again. Whether anything will happen is still to be seen. However, events like this can have a large impact on the stock market. Events like this are unexpected and investors react to it.
This can be seen by $MGM dropping in value before the market even opened and ended up losing over 5% in value today. However, the opposite happened to gun stocks. These stocks saw an increase in value in response to the shooting. For example, Sturm Ruger & Company Inc rose more than 3% today and American Outdoor Brands Corp also rose more than 3%.
So, what is to make about this data. Well for starters if you own $MGM there is no need to worry. This shooting caused this stock to lose value and don’t be surprised if this stock rebounds nicely. This business is down just by bad luck.
The gun stocks are interesting. Investors must think that the number of guns bought will increase over fears that the government will take their guns away. This would be based on historical data as gun sales often increase after shootings. Well I don’t think that gun stocks will keep up the good numbers for long. This is because Republicans and gun control run the whole government won’t make its way into law. Now this isn’t to say that just Republicans are the reason, Democrats had plenty of opportunities during Obamas time in office. In saying this buying gun stocks right now because they did well today isn’t a great investment idea. The stocks are surly going to go back to normal.
The interesting thing about the market today is that in general the market did well today with the DOW, NASDAQ, and the S&P 500 ending in the positive. This is a little surprising because I would have expected the stock market to reflect the terrible events of today. It will be interesting to see how the stock market ends the week.
This was truly a terrible event and our prayers go out to the victims and their families.