Stocks Drop Worldwide on Bear Stearns Collapse; Bonds Rise, Dollar Falls

[marmar]

from Bloomberg:



Stocks Tumble Around World, Dollar Declines After Fed Cuts Rate

By Patrick Rial

March 17 (Bloomberg) -- Stocks fell around the world and the dollar tumbled after the Federal Reserve cut its discount interest rate at an emergency meeting and JPMorgan Chase & Co. agreed to buy Bear Stearns Cos. for $2 a share. Bonds, gold and crude oil climbed.

UBS AG posted its biggest drop in more than nine years in Zurich and Japan's Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. fell to the lowest in four years. Europe's Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index and Japan's Nikkei 225 Stock Average sank to the lowest since 2005, while futures on the Standard & Poor's 500 Index decreased 2 percent on mounting concern that other financial companies will run short of cash.

The dollar slid to record lows against the euro and the Swiss franc and fell to the weakest in 12 years against the yen, helping push gold and crude oil to highs.

``This is a serious crisis,'' said David Goldman, senior portfolio strategist at Asteri Capital in New York and former head of debt research at Banc of America Securities LLC. ``Something is systemically very wrong and we're at a very dangerous moment.''

The Fed lowered the rate on direct loans to commercial banks by 25 basis points to 3.25 percent to help restore confidence in financial markets shaken by the collapse of Bear Stearns and more than $195 billion in asset writedowns and credit losses worldwide. The action coincided with JPMorgan buying Bear Stearns for about $240 million, less than a 10th of its value last week.

Dollar Slump

S&P 500 futures expiring in June slumped 2 percent to 1,266.8 as of 11:50 a.m. in London. The index will slip into a bear market should it drop below 1,252.12, 20 percent lower than its Oct. 9 record and 2.3 percentage points from its current level.

The Stoxx 600 fell 3.5 percent to 293.43, while the MSCI Asia Pacific Index lost 2.4 percent to 132.71. Japan's Nikkei tumbled 3.7 percent to the lowest since August 2005.

Global stock markets lost $2.4 trillion in market value from a peak in October as of March 14. That partly reflects the slump in the U.S. dollar. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ai74.Xr2ULxY&refer=home

[4dsc]

1. Watch for a run on bank stocks today..n/t

[nicknyc]

2. Lehman brothers(NYSE:LEH) are going to be short today

very very badly. Expect all finance stocks to go down 10-30% minimum just in opening 5 minutes (from 9:30EST to 9:35EST)..

it is so bad!

[Cassandra]

3. "Something is systemically very wrong"

Yes, we are watching the implosion of supply-side economics and unregulated capitalism. Why they couldn't see this coming and I could makes me wonder why they are getting the big bucks and I am not.
You can't deregulate everything and expect greedy people to act like angels.
You can't starve the middle class of fair wages and expect them to keep spending.
You can't send everyone's jobs overseas and expect to have a functioning economy.

[horseshoecrab]

4. You can't say it any more succinctly than that Cassandra

If only the clown prince had been able to foresee any of this....

But who ever would've guessed that deregulation could go wrong? Who could predict that our captains of industry would turn out to be pickpockets?

How would one know that people without fair wages can't spend?

What on earth would've tipped a president off that sending our jobs overseas would break the freaking economy?


Shaking my head in wonder. Are they finished pre-medicating him yet? I wonder how much of the people's money is being thrown at the market right this minute to try to get a rally happening, all so that he can get out in front of the people of this country to "reassure" us. :scared:


horseshoecrab

[Cassandra]

6. Thanks

The Republicans have been ruining the economy for nearly my entire adult life. Sad, really.

[tuckessee]

5. Just another day under the Bushco Corp. n/t