It’s approaching 2 AM ET….\u00a0\u00a0 the leaders of the world met over the weekend to prepare to throw everything they have to stop any panic today in the finnancial market.<\/p>\n
Europe is just waking up and still a couple hours fom their markets opening.\u00a0\u00a0 The real volatitlity won’t show up until the American markets start to trade at 9:30 AM.<\/p>\n
So what are the reactions so far?<\/p>\n
– the EU\/US$ exchange rate is fairly stable –\u00a0probably reflecting that we both have problems.\u00a0\u00a0 This lkely will change when Europe starts trading<\/p>\n
– interest rates <\/span>for the other AAA sovereign debt issuers\u00a0are plunging <\/span>as people are (apparently) moving moving out of US Treasuries – but New Zealand and Australia don’t have that much debt to trade – that’s part of why they are AAA<\/p>\n – US treasury rates are going up<\/span> – but only part of the way they dropped just before S&P dropped the bombshell on Tim Geithner<\/p>\n –\u00a0crude oil prices\u00a0are dropping a LOT – the reports I read generally are suggesting that the private equity firms that speculate in oil are pulling their money out, and some of it is forced sales – the more it drops, the more people who will have to close out their positions<\/p>\n – Gold is up a lot<\/span> – those predictions of $2000\/ounce look doable in a few days.\u00a0\u00a0 With leaders in the United States saying “Don’t worry, we can always print more dollars”, they clearly don’t understand the problem they are feeding<\/p>\n – Stock indexes suggest about a 2% drop in the stock market, but it’s too early to put much faith in that – when the US traders start showing up around 8 AM, then we’ll know what is happening.\u00a0 Asian markets are down about 3%, and they close fairly soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s approaching 2 AM ET….\u00a0\u00a0 the leaders of the world met over the weekend to prepare to throw everything they have to stop any panic today in the finnancial market. Europe is just waking up and still a couple hours … Continue reading