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/ 19 September 2008
Who’s to blame? Indebted Americans? Alan Greenspan? Slack credit rating agencies? Greedy and overpaid chief executives?
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/ 18 September 2008
Larry Elliott takes a look at the bail-out which is a nationalisation designed to avert the worst market collapse since the 1930s.
Record high oil prices at a barrel deepened worries about inflation on Thursday and weighed on some Asian stocks although Japanese shares ended slightly higher, as dealers trimmed their bets on further weakness. The dollar trudged higher against the euro after earlier hitting a one-month low after the Federal Reserve slashed its United States 2008 growth forecast
The worst of the financial-sector crisis is over, although the impact on the broader economy will likely drag on in coming months, International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said on Thursday. "There are good reasons to believe that the largest part of disclosure in financial institutions has been done," he said.
The ”American dream” of unashamed wealth and the opportunity for all to acquire it has reached a crisis point before: in the Depression, the oil shock, in the ”greed is good” Eighties and the madness of the dotcom bubble. But America’s relationship with wealth — uncomfortable as it has sometimes been — has always been built on the same foundation.
The United States mortgage crisis has spiralled into ”the largest financial shock since the Great Depression” and there is a one-in-four chance that it will cause a full-blown global recession, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned on Wednesday.
The head of the crisis-hit investment bank Bear Stearns has blamed short sellers and market manipulators for spreading negative financial rumours to induce a collapse of the 85-year-old Wall Street institution. Bear’s chief executive, Alan Schwartz, told the senate’s finance committee in Washington that his firm had been as well-capitalised as its rivals.
More than 20 000 people are forecast to lose their jobs on Wall Street as the credit crunch bites into business at financial institutions over the next two years. New York’s Independent Budget Office, a non-partisan agency which scrutinises the city’s finances, estimates that profits on Wall Street fell by 80% during 2007 to ,2-billion — the lowest level since 1994.
Signs of life in the United States housing market combined with JPMorgan’s higher bid for Bear Stearns to push global equity markets up sharply on Tuesday, and sent corporate debt demand soaring. The dollar remained weak, however, while eurozone government bond prices took a hefty hit as equities rose.
The JSE remained firm by midday on Tuesday as overnight gains in the United States triggered good buying interest among global equities. By noon, the JSE’s broader all-share index was up 2,22%. Banks gained 3,1% and financials lifted 3,06%.
Oil prices slipped more than a barrel on Monday as traders worried that the flagging United States economy would cause oil demand to soften. Oil’s sharp decline started last week. Crude futures started plunging after the US Federal Reserve-backed sale of Bear Stearns to JPMorgan Chase created fears of deeper economic problems.
Central banks on both sides of the Atlantic are in talks about the feasibility of mass purchases of mortgage-backed securities in a bid to solve the global credit crisis, the Financial Times said on Saturday. The newspaper, without citing sources, said the talks were at an early stage and part of a broader exchange on how to battle the turmoil in financial markets,
JPMorgan Chase is offering bankers at Bear Stearns bonuses to stay and support the controversial takeover, a person familiar with the situation said on Thursday. Those employees who stay at the close of the deal would receive a bonus that will include JPMorgan shares.
The Federal Reserve slashed United States interest rates by a hefty three-quarters of a percentage point on Tuesday, giving a lift to stock markets already jubilant over stronger-than-expected investment bank earnings. Trying to avert a deep recession and financial market meltdown, the central bank cut less than many traders had expected but left the door open to additional reductions.
A Paris court on Tuesday freed Jerome Kerviel, the trader accused of causing record losses at French bank Société Générale, pending investigation, his lawyers said. Société Générale unveiled €4,9-billion (,64-billion) of losses in January in the biggest trading scandal in recent history.
Gold added $24,95, or 2,49%, to trade at $1 025,05 by 1.30pm on Monday — this after rising more than 3% to a record $1 032,60 a troy ounce in overnight trade. Oil prices have also rallied in response to the dollar’s weakness overnight with Nymex crude setting a fresh all-time high of $111,80.
Global stocks fell and the dollar tumbled on Monday as a fire sale of Bear Stearns and an emergency Federal Reserve cut of a key lending rate sparked fears that a worldwide credit crisis will claim more casualties. European shares sank more than 3%, following a sell-off in Asia where Japan’s leading indexes shed more than 3,5%.
JP Morgan Chase set a deal to buy stricken rival Bear Stearns for a rock-bottom price, while the United States Federal Reserve expanded lending to securities firms for the first time since the Great Depression to prop up the financial system. The shock news, the biggest sign yet of how devastating the credit crisis is for Wall Street, slammed the US dollar to a record low against the euro,
The global credit crunch claimed its biggest victim yet on Friday when the United States Federal Reserve orchestrated an emergency bail-out for Bear Stearns after a cash crisis prompted a run on the US’s fifth-biggest investment bank. President George Bush sought to calm fears of a deep recession in the world’s biggest economy.
An affiliate of United States-based buyout firm Carlyle Group has defaulted on about ,6-billion of debt and expects its lenders to seize remaining assets as the global credit crunch tightens around leveraged investors. A ”successful refinancing is not possible,” Carlyle Capital said.
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/ 30 January 2008
Fresh write-offs at big European and Japanese banks on Wednesday drove investors’ attention firmly back onto the credit crunch after days gazing at Société Générale’s stunning losses, which it blames on a junior trader. With the Federal Reserve expected to cut interest rates for the second week running, Swiss bank UBS illuminated the depth of the crisis.
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/ 17 December 2007
World stock markets slumped on Monday on worries that resurgent United States inflation would reduce the chances of further US interest rate cuts to shield the economy from a credit crunch, dealers said. European and Asian shares sank into the red with losses of up to 3,5% as investors took their cue from Wall Street’s sell-off on Friday.
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/ 9 November 2007
A monster offshore oil discovery could help Brazil join the ranks of the world’s major exporters, but full-scale extraction is unlikely until 2013 and will be very expensive. The "ultra-deep" Tupi field off the coast of Rio de Janeiro could hold as much as eight billion barrels of recoverable light crude.
UBS AG, the world’s largest wealth manager, unveiled $3,4-billion in losses, has swept out senior managers and slashed jobs in one of the biggest casualties yet of the worldwide credit crunch. UBS said on Monday it will write down a net four billion Swiss francs ($3,42-billion) in its fixed-income portfolio and elsewhere.
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/ 19 September 2007
The Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers has revealed that the global credit crunch knocked -million off its revenue over the summer as mortgage-backed securities plummeted in value. Lehman blamed an ”extremely difficult environment” in global financial markets for a 3% drop in its third-quarter profits to -billion.