Dow Jones

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Lehman CDS Payout On October 21: $360bn or $6bn?
By taking stock of all the conditions and Lehman's CDS payout. Will Dow Jones open up?



Will the Dow Jones Industrial Average open higher on October 20?

Wall Street Crash of 1929

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The Wall Street Crash of 1929,[1][2] also known as the ’29 Crash,[3] the Crash of 1929,[4] the Great Crash of 1929,[5] the Great Crash of October 1929,[6] the Great Wall Street Crash of 1929,[7] 1929 Great Crash,[8] or the Great Crash, was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, taking into consideration the full extent and longevity of its fallout.[9]

Three phrases - Black Thursday, Black Monday, and Black Tuesday - are used to describe this collapse of stock values. All three are appropriate, for the crash was not a one-day affair. The initial crash occurred on Black Thursday (October 24, 1929), but it was the catastrophic downturn of Black Monday and Tuesday (October 28 and 29, 1929) that precipitated widespread panic and the onset of unprecedented and long-lasting consequences for the United States.


The collapse continued for a month. Economists and historians disagree as to what role the crash played in subsequent economic, social, and political events. The Economist writes, "Briefly, the Depression did not start with the stockmarket [sic] crash."[10] In 1929, The Economist wrote, "Can a very serious Stock Exchange collapse produce a serious setback to industry when industrial production is for the most part in a healthy and balanced condition?"[11][clarify]


The crash in America came near the beginning of the Great Depression, a period of economic decline in the industrialized nations, and led to the institution of landmark financial reforms and new trading regulations.
At the time of the crash, New York City had grown to be a major metropolis, and its Wall Street district was one of the world's leading financial centers.The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) was the largest stock market in the world.[citation needed]

The Roaring Twenties, which was a precursor to the Crash,[12] was a time of prosperity and excess in the city, and despite warnings against speculation, many believed that the market could sustain high price levels. Shortly before the crash, Irving Fisher famously proclaimed, "Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."[13]


The euphoria and financial gains of the great bull market were shattered on Black Thursday, when share prices on the NYSE collapsed. Stock prices fell on that day and they continued to fall, at an unprecedented rate for a full month.[14]


In the days leading up to Black Tuesday, the market was severely unstable. Periods of selling and high volumes of trading were interspersed with brief periods of rising prices and recovery. Economist and author Jude Wanniski later correlated these swings with the prospects for passage of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which was then being debated in Congress.[15]


After the crash, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) recovered early in 1930, only to reverse again, reaching a low point of the great bear market in 1932. The Dow did not return to pre-1929 levels until late 1954,[16] and was lower at its July 8, 1932 level than it had been since the 1800s.[17]

Anyone who bought stocks in mid-1929 and held onto them saw most of his or her adult life pass by before getting back to even.






Buffett Says Now Is the Time to Buy U.S. Equities

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Warren Buffett said he's buying U.S. stocks and, if prices stay attractive, his personal investments, as distinct from his stake in Berkshire Hathaway Inc., will soon be wholly in American equities.

Writing in the New York Times, he said he's following the principle: be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.

Exaggerated concern about the long-term prosperity of financially secure U.S. companies is foolish, and most will probably be setting profit records in years to come, Buffett said.

While short-term stock movements can't be foretold, the likelihood is that the market will recover before the economy or general investor sentiment do so, and ``if you wait for the robins, spring will be over,'' he said.

US Retail Sales Fall

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US retail sales were down 1.2 pc. More than everyone expected. Evidence that the crisis on Wall Street had extended to Main Street came with a 1.2pc fall in US retail sales, far worse than the 0.7pc expected and the steepest decline since August 2005.

"People have dropped shopping. This happened even before the total meltdown in the stock markets," said Joel Naroff at Naroff Economic Advisors, implying worse was to come.

The figures appeared to confirm the view of San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President Janet Yellen, who became one of the first US officials to use the dreaded R-word. "The US economy appears to be in a recession," she said, speaking in Silicon Valley.

More tellingly, Jeffrey Frankel, one of the seven members of America's National Institute for Economic Research – the body that officially decides whether the US is in recession – told The Daily Telegraph: "I think the chances are very high that we are currently in recession."

In Britain, the focus was on job figures showing unemployment shooting up at its fastest pace for 17 years – when the country was gripped by the early 1990s' downturn.

The Office for National Statistics said the numbers of unemployed rose 164,000 to 1.79m in the three months to August – an ominous sign as jobless figures are a lagging indicator of economic health.

David Blanchflower, a member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee, said he now fears unemployment could top 2m by Christmas.

"We may have avoided financial Armageddon. But the UK is heading into a severe recession and most of the economic pain still lies ahead," warned Michael Saunders, economist at Citigroup.

Fed's Beige Book

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What is Beige Book?

The Beige Book, more formally called the Summary of Commentary on Current Economic Conditions, is a report published by the Federal Reserve Board eight times a year. Each report is a gathering of "anecdotal information on current economic conditions" by each Federal Reserve Bank in its district from "Bank and Branch directors and interviews with key business contacts, economists, market experts, and other sources."

Federal Reserve Board Beige Book website

Iceland for sale on eBay

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http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Iceland_for_sale_on_eBay_for_99_pence/articleshow/3582777.cms

Pakistan Facing Bankruptacy

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Pakistan's foreign exchange reserves are so low that the country can only afford one month of imports and faces possible bankruptcy.

The Pakistan rupee has lost more than 21 per cent of its value so far this year and inflation now runs at 25 per cent. The rise in world prices has driven up Pakistan's food and oil bill by a third since 2007.

Efforts to defer payment for 100,000 barrels of oil supplied every day by Saudi Arabia have not yet yielded results, while the government has also failed to raise loans on favourable terms from "friendly countries".

More in http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/3147266/Pakistan-facing-bankruptcy.html

US Markets Live

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US markets commentary live on

http://stage.theflyonthewall.com/entry.php?symbol=NOSYMBOL

Global Economic Crisis

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Last week Global economic crisis was so deep that markets plummetted all over the world. World leaders were discussing a solution to the global crisis and one suggestion was to rewrite the rules of international finance which should be implemented in global financial markets.

As per Bloomberg

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said political leaders are discussing the idea of closing the world's financial markets while they ``rewrite the rules of international finance.''

``The idea of suspending the markets for the time it takes to rewrite the rules is being discussed,'' Berlusconi said today after a Cabinet meeting in Naples, Italy. A solution to the financial crisis ``can't just be for one country, or even just for Europe, but global.''