April 2008
The world is starting to resemble a spinning top: one week the markets soar, the next they sink. Even mighty masters of the universe are confused: hedge funds and banks had a dire month in March.
April 2008
We are engulfed in a tornado of gloom. Wall Street titans and employees alike have seen their share options decimated, pension pots plummet and everyone feels insecure about job security. I’m hearing that investment banks need to cut 20% of their employees to accommodate lower profitability.
March 2008
Credit Suisse’s convoluted saga is a calamity for the banking sector as a whole. People might assume that banks don’t understand the numbers they are dealing with and that the numbers that are reported are not reliable.
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May 2008
Only suckers believe that the remedies applied to the credit crisis have cured the underlying sickness. There’s more painful adjustment to come, and it could last two to five years.
April 2008
More assets are yet to be hit in the credit crisis and, as leverage continues to fall out of play, liquidity will keep on drying up. Equity prices are bound to fall still further too.
March 2008
The effects of the sub-prime crisis are spreading and could cost 2.5% of world GDP. Emerging market economies will not be immune.
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May 2008
With the euro hitting fresh record highs against the dollar, it must be tempting for European policymakers to crow. However, complacency could lead to crisis.
April 2008
Much is made of Ben Bernanke’s academic work on the Great Depression. However, the Fed chairman seems to making policy with one eye on the recent Japanese debt deflation cycle.
March 2008
Six months into a credit crunch there are few signs of an improving outlook for non-government bond markets. It is a signal equity investors would do well to heed.
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April 2008
The central banks have done a good job on liquidity, but the credit squeeze, the US recession and inflation rather suggest the current calm is the eye of a storm.
April 2008
Three dangers: credit crisis, recession and inflation. Only the first is being dealt with, and then essentially only in terms of liquidity. Expect a “U”-shaped recession with a long base.
April 2008
We have long identified three underlying causes of the crisis, but this week the figure three arises again in the dangers threatening an orderly move to a rebalanced world economy.
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