⌛ The great crash of 08 has begun.....

Asian markets in free fall.

Major World Indices - Yahoo! Finance

And it's MLK day back home, so no words of comfort from the "Fed".

Ouch!

 

.... followed by the european market, and their stock-markets opened only some 2 hours ago...

Rhoody

 

Yup, the economists telling the truth always said the big market meltdown would begin in Asia and quickly envelope the whole world.

And I'm afraid we're seeing it happen in real time this week.

The good news is, the dollar will rise if the Fed doesn't rate cut.

The bad news is, the Fed's going to protect themselves and their high-roller friends, and they're going to slash the dollar into oblivion and replace it with the Amero.

 

Not looking pretty...Dow futures have been bouncing around between -200 to -400 (currently -265). If this follows thru Tues when New York opens...it'll be another rout. Reckon the Fed will cut .5% this week....and more a bit later...won't do the dollar any favours.

Bloomberg.com: Futures

 

Great Financial Advice Site

tune to Bill Cara: Capital Markets & Social Equity One of the great financial and market analytical sites ever. Has pin pointed the markets with uncanny precision. This is a free site and has many posts by Bill and extremely skilled traders not the suits or bozos that work in brokerage houses. If you think Cramer of CNBC is a big bag of wind, then this site is for you.

 

Interesting read...Thanks! I'll keep checking on it.

FTSE has fallen over tonight. Down -5% this session, so far.....looking like general capitulation..

 

There's always someone running around yelling "the sky is falling" and hoping it does so they can say "I told you so". Some of these Chicken Littles have been predicting Armageddon for decades. I'm no fan of the current US, IMF, World Bank economic policy but I doubt this is the end of the world as we know it. Thanks for the link Philippinediver. It's nice to know there are some rational people giving financial advice out there.

 

HOLD EVERYTHING!!! YOU MIGHT BE RIGHT!!!

I JUST SAW AN UPTICK ON THE NIKKEI AT 12,700.

Wait, it's over now.

Continue plummet.

 

It's a sure bet then that the Asians and Europeans will eat their pets before we do.

 

The market may be near a bottom. Certainly the level of fear is what we've seen in previous bottoms. But you have to remember that market crashes don't start from a position of being overbought - they come out of a market that is oversold... and then people decide that it is going lower and they refuse to step up and buy when the fear reaches prior buy-in points.

The markets are acting like: 1. There's a whoppin' big problem in the debt markets, starting in the US, but extending to the UK and EU as well as other countries. 2. The central banks don't know how to deal with it. 3. The politicians in the US are making utterly stupid suggestions for a "stimulus package" that will do nothing for the debt markets, which means that none of the supposed "wise people" in governments really understands what is going on or how widespread the problem is.

So the markets are trying to lock in gains, roll out to cash and get real liquid, real quick. When the crap hits the fan, it is usually best to be in cash - "Cash is King" as the expression goes.

One of the tells: there is no rotation into a new sector - ie, the money is coming completely out, not going from a growth sector into a defensive sector. That's why I'm not going to treat this as a bottom except for quick trades.

I think stocks are going to get cheaper than where they are now. People keep pointing to the economy. "The economy is... ." This has little, if anything, to do with the economy now. This market has a problem with banks, banking and central banks. Oh, and with bad debt, debt instruments that are complete shams, sham securities that are blowing up balance sheets left, right and center around the world.

Last week, bond insurers took a hit on their credit ratings, which has some very far-reaching impacts. And then there are credit default swaps far in excess of capital reserves that might come due.

Things are looking very dicey in the debt markets, and this has equity people looking for the exits. When the bond people ain't happy, there's almost no one else that is happy.