strong/stronga href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SVFAWkhXc8I/AAAAAAAAL3k/ueQYKIgYSc0/s1600-h/hrvynia.png"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5283074594387227586" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 159px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SVFAWkhXc8I/AAAAAAAAL3k/ueQYKIgYSc0/s320/hrvynia.png" border="0" //abr /br /blockquotep“In Ukraine, the evidence is still that policymakers do not quite understand the seriousness of the challenges they face,”. Timothy Ash, analyst at the Royal Bank of Scotland. /pp“There is a burgeoning economic crisis in the European periphery,” Krugman said on the ABC network Dec. 14. “The money has dried up. That’s the new center, the center of this crisis has moved from the U.S. housing market to the European periphery.” /p/blockquoteMake no mistake about it. What is taking place right now in Ukraine is extraordinarily serious. The IMF have recently agreed a support loan to the country, but the politicians themselves still can't agree on whether or not they are actually going to abide by the conditions attached to it. Meantime, as we can all see on ...

strongWall Street Journal and Financial News/strongbr /br /By Jason Corcoranbr /br /15 December 2008 br /br /Fund managers have called the bottom too oftenbr /The investment horizon has experienced so many false dawns over the past 18 months that investors could be forgiven for regarding any rose-tinted outlook as a mirage.br /br /Every time the stock market suffers another steep drop, fund managers and investment sages pronounce that the market bottom is in sight and now is the time to buy.br /br /Fundamentals, technical signs and precedents may have backed up some of their theories but subsequent slumps in valuations have not borne out their views.br /br /Ken Kinsey-Quick, head of multi-manager strategies at UK asset manager Thames River Capital, said: “The problem with predictions is that no one has a perfect crystal ball. Anyone making a prediction is taking a risk which gives them about a 30% chance ...

Bernie Madoff looks set to be this year’s Grinch, at least for stock investors. His $50 billion ‘Ponzi’ scheme suckered many high-profile institutional investors. And as full details emerge, Frank Hemsley says it could shatter the fragile confidence in the market. This could mean a sharp leg down for stocks before the New Year. This from Fleet Street Daily:

Often at the end of the year there’s a substantial surge in stock markets. It’s a phenomenon known as the Santa Claus Rally, on account of it occurring between Christmas and New Year. You can see it on this chart.

Some say this rush of buying is to do with people investing their Christmas bonuses. Others say it’s because the market bears are away on holiday this week – or just that there’s a general feeling of seasonal good will and happiness at this

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One and half year ago I had been posting about a href="http://stockweb.blogspot.com/2007/04/another-offer-for-abn.html"strongtakeover bidding for ABN Ambro/strong/a from Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays, Santander Central Hispano SA and Fortis. Finally Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) offered the most, USD 100 bln and won. Now for the same amount RBS could buy following list of companies and has still remaining USD 8 bln.br /br /Citibank (C) 22,5 blnbr /Morgan Stanley (MS) 10,5 blnbr /Goldman Sachs (GS) 21 blnbr /Merrill Lynch (MER) 12,3 blnbr /Deutsche Bank (DB) 13 blnbr /Barclays (BCS) 12,7 blndiv class="blogger-post-footer"http://stockweb.blogspot.com/atom.xml/div pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/jYRf2kOYeFPn5vll127_JCskVMw/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/jYRf2kOYeFPn5vll127_JCskVMw/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/Stockweb?a=lzAsu6FF"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/Stockweb?d=41" border="0"/img/a /div

The labor situation has become so dire that you can now hire an American Blue Chip CEO for a dollar – and a ride to work.

I’ve already reported in these pages as to how many of the top officers of the few remaining grand old Wall Street houses are forgoing bonuses this year. Now we hear that GM’s Rick Wagoner and Ford’s Alan Mulally have cut themselves back to a mere dollar each for 2009.

They are not the only folks willing to do a lot more for a tad less. One of the peculiar byproducts of these uncertain times is a sudden 1.3% increase in U.S. worker productivity.

It’s a Recession (At Least) After All

Last month (officially the 11th in our newly christened recession) saw another 250,000 jobs eliminated, making it the worst November since 2001. With unemployment hovering somewhere between 6.5%

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One of the lesser-known fundamentals underpinning the global economy is the Baltic Dry Index, a benchmark that measures dry-bulk shipping rates.  Dry bulk goods include the most commonly used raw materials, like grains, coal, and metals.  When global economies are booming, demand for these inputs (and the ships to transport them) fuels high day rates for companies like DryShips (NDAQ:DRYS) to transport these goods across the world’s oceans.  

    View the full BALDRY chart at Wikinvest

The Baltic Dry Index (BDI) tracks rates in the 22 main shipping routes for these key inputs.  The BDI has plummeted in the past several months, as the U.S. financial crisis has snowballed into a global economic downturn and the consumption of raw materials has ground to a halt.  For example, China is the world’s biggest consumer of steel, but it has cut its consumption as infrastructure projects

...

A chronology of the recent global market chaos:

September 14/15 - Investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings files for bankruptcy protection; Merrill Lynch to be taken over by Bank of America Corp.

September 16 - U.S. Federal Reserve announces plan for $85 billion (49 billion pound) loan to American International Group in return for an 80 percent stake in the insurer; Barclays buys parts of Lehman’s North American assets for $1.75 billion.

September 17 - British bank Lloyds TSB Group agrees to rescue rival HBOS, scooping up Britain’s biggest home loan lender in an all-share deal.

September 19 - U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson calls for the government to spend billions of dollars to take toxic mortgage assets off financial companies. Stock markets soar.

September 20 - Details emerge of the $700 billion U.S. plan.

September 21 - Goldman Sachs Group and Morgan Stanley become bank holding companies regulated by the Fed.

September 22 - Nomura Holdings says

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Stocks posted among their best one day gain today, on word that the government is putting together a plan to buy stakes in some banks, as a way of help instilling confidence again into the banking system.

This follows a similar but more concentrated U.K. government plan to buy equity stakes to the tune of $37 billion, in Royal Bank of Scotland in which it will take a more than 50% stake, and Lloyds TSB and HBOS which are in the process of merging. The U.K government will take a 40% stake in the combined Lloyds TSB and HBOS. European Union central bankers also announced similar plans to inject capital into their banking systems.

The Dow Jones industrial average was up 936 points (11.08%) finishing the day at 936.42. This was the largest point gain ever for the Dow and the fourth largest percentage gain.

The Nasdaq was up 194.74 for 11.81%,

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I've already posted two times aggregated sum of writedowns caused by subprime meltdown. It is time to see updated version of losses for major financial institutions. This time I've added column with amount of raised capital and money infusions to respective institution.Altogether financial losses account for USD 592 bln. Up to now raised capital and money infusion are USD 443 bln. You can see that since last time total sum has been almost tripled. ticker losses capital received ...

Yen trades to 98!  Carry Trades unwinding hurt high yielders...  Gold rallies back to $900!  Central Bank rate cuts.... And Now... Today's Pfennig!