When US stocks dived following the passing of the bailout bill, President Bush sought to calm investors. He said it would "take a while" for the bill to take effect. Problem is George W doesn't have much of time.

In less than one month, Americans will vote into office either Barack Obama or John McCain. Each has very different ideas about how to tackle the financial crisis.

Martin Hutchinson says Obama is most likely to win on a populist anti-Wall Street platform. But if he follows up this rhetoric with more regulation and protectionism, this could hurt US investors even more in the long run.

The market’s verdict on the $700 billion bailout was pretty clear: Stock prices started dropping the moment the bill was passed on Friday afternoon and continued to do so Monday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing down 370 points for the day – after being down 800 points earlier that same day. The economic effect is also pretty clear: Given that the bailout plan is being launched at a point when money is already tight – and that it pours $700 billion of our money into the most useless, toxic waste left over from the housing bubble – you can be certain that it will end up starving more-worthwhile potential investments of badly needed capital. But the political impact is less clear, in both the short- and long-term periods. For a start, it’s not clear to the electorate who is to blame ...

In the currency market, the dollar danced up and down with the euro, to little ultimate effect. Late Thursday, the euro was trading at $1.4615 vs. $1.4619 on Wednesday.