Are the markets reaching the bottom?
It is usually said that capitulation is reached and the markets can go higher only when everyone has thrown in the towel. Are we there yet? I don’t think so. However, would suggest you head over to the Guardian website and vote accordingly at their article “Is the market reaching the bottom?” The poll results speak volumes about investor attitudes.
So when one reflexively asks the question, have we reached bottom yet, what is your answer?
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Edward – with markets falling 10% a day, I guess it doesn’t take too many goes at saying “this is the bottom” before it is. So with that in mind, today is the bottom!
Let’s “hope” the weekend brings some relief as the powers-that-be come up with something to quell the panic – at least for a while…
Stevie, what I am looking for is a prop to equity prices today so we can eek out a win. Then over the weekend I would like to see a massive federal response to the crisis along the lines of what Nouriel Roubini has suggested.
https://www.rgemonitor.com/roubini-monitor/253973/the_world_is_at_severe_risk_of_a_global_systemic_financial_meltdown_and_a_severe_global_depression
At this point, we are looking at more of a psychological bear market than anything else and the policy makers need to take massive action to counteract that. I am listening to George W. Bush addressing the crisis right now and he sounds completely hollow and does not inspire confidence. This makes me very worried indeed.
After an initial 700 point fall, we are now only 122 points down. We desperately need an up day.
So I say we haven’t hit bottom until that happens and policy makers do something drastic.
The poll results speak volumes about investor attitudes.
Not sure what an online poll would say about investor attitudes. You might as well be looking at Google trends for search terms such as “deflation“.
“As the sight of David Cameron going to Carl Bildt for instruction on how the Swedes handled their crisis illustrates…”
…. some politicians are prepared to learn rather than just spout off.
I’ll call a market bottom once people stop asking the question and just shuffle around in a daze. I’m still calling it the panic stage.
I suspect that the UK and Europe will, quite shortly, nationalise the banks — purely because this seems the only way in which the drying up of credit can be reversed. (Note for example the emerging difficulties with financing international trade.) It may also be the only way in which a continued market meltdown can be averted, though that is unpredictable.
Will the U.S. follow suit? Or is a reflexive opposition to anything smacking of ‘socialism’ going to prevent it paying any attention to the lessons of international experience, as produced in the IMF report Roubini and Yves Smith have discussed?
As the sight of David Cameron going to Carl Bildt for instruction on how the Swedes handled their crisis illustrates, a lot of humble pie is beginning to be eaten in the U.K.
Is the dish too strong for American stomachs still?
I’m absolutely shocked that Brown and Darling were able to present a plan that was not only not-a-disaster but actually towards the “good” end of the scale.
I can only assume someone else wrote it and forced it on them. Note also that Brown is playing at Noble World Leader right now. He’ll still be crushed in the election. But yeah, pat on the back for the stopped clock telling the right time.
I listened to what George Bush had to say at 10 AM and it was not reassuring in the least. I am fully onboard with Yves and Nouriel.
In my post “The Europeanisation of the Credit Crisis”, I argued that ‘socialism is needed as the markets have fundamentally broken down. We need to guarantee deposit and interbank lending (the LIBOR market). We then also need to re-capitalise banks as the UK has done and liquidate bad banks as Sweden did.
I would say I was one of the first to raise the Swedish parallels back in August with my post on the Swedish response.
It’s been more than a month and half since then and the Americans are still dithering. You have to give Gordon Brown a pat on the back for seizing the day. And he was supposed to be indecisive.
The Americans are looking much more so. And that’s my government.
Edward Harrison,
I apologise for having left you out, when I praised Nouriel Roubini and Yves Smith.
It is simply that I have only recently discovered your excellent blog, while having followed their thoughts for some time.
nick von mises,
I think it quite likely that Mervyn King wrote the plan for Brown and Darling.
I also think it quite likely that King send Cameron off to see Bildt.
I suspect King may have said something like — if you go on spouting out-of-date Thatcherite rhetoric, rather than facing up to the total shambles we are in, the whole British banking system may vanish in a puff of smoke.
Doubtless Cameron also realises that in the current political climate, aligning himself with the City and Wall Street is just about the only thing that could lose him the election.
But I actually think he is a decent man — he just needs to cut the rhetoric and come down to earth.
The same could be said of many politicians both in the U.K. and the U.S.
You have to give Gordon Brown a pat on the back for seizing the day.
Absolutely agreed – UK look like very much international leaders here. This is going to do wonders for Brown politically.
Just as soon as we find that “bottom”…