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• Investors Anxious for “Big Three” Decision in Last Full Week of 2008 Trading - Editor, 15 December 2008 - No Comments yet

With Monday marking the start of the last full week of trading for 2008, U.S. stock market investors are likely to be focusing their attention on developments regarding Detroit’s Big Three automakers and the possibility of a central bank interest rate cut. They will also be considering earnings reports from influential companies such as Goldman Sachs and Oracle and reports on housing, consumer pricing and manufacturing.

• Fed to Take Further Steps to Rescue Sinking Housing Markets - Editor, 5 December 2008 - No Comments yet

U.S. stocks took another tumble on Thursday with the major indexes each sliding more than 2.5 percent after a day of gains and losses. Investors have a host of concerns that are driving their buy and sell decisions, but the pervading sense of uncertainty won through in the end, with the session closing on a low. Executives from the Big Three automakers presented their case to a Senate panel on Thursday and will be speaking before the House panel on Friday in an effort to secure what they prefer to refer to as a “bridge loan” rather than a “bailout”. Oil prices dipping to an almost four-year low, a drop in gold and other metals, disconcerting unemployment figures, a dismal outlook on the housing market and gloomy retail reports all added to the late-in-the-day stock sell-off.

• Markets Take a Tumble as NBER Confirms U.S. in Recession - Editor, 2 December 2008 - No Comments yet

Any hopes for a continued U.S. stock market rally were dashed on Monday when the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) announced that the nation is officially in a recession. Markets responded to the news with an accelerated sell-off, spurred on by investor panic. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 680 points, or 7.7 percent. Since the beginning of 2008 the Dow is down 38.6 percent, and since its record close of 14164.53 on 9 October 2007, the Dow has lost 42.5 percent. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 8.9 percent on Monday, while the Nasdaq composite index lost 9 percent.

• Investors View Market Rally with Cautious Optimism - Editor, 27 November 2008 - No Comments yet

While months of market volatility have taken a toll on stock market players, there is an air of cautious optimism that the market rally being experienced at present will continue, at least in the short term. Following President-elect Barack Obama’s pledge that on his first day in office he would have a plan to deal with the U.S. economic crisis, early session losses on Thursday were reversed. While gathering his economic team, which has met with approval from many quarters, Obama reassured the nation that “help is on the way”.

• U.S. Markets in Anticipation of Obama-Administration Economic Team Announcement - Editor, 24 November 2008 - No Comments yet

At the end of a week of volatility, reflecting the many uncertainties and unanswered questions facing investors, U.S. stock markets rallied during Friday’s trading and while not entirely regaining the losses of the week, at least minimized those losses to some extent. Many believe that the rally in the market can be attributed primarily to the rumors and speculation with regard to who will be making up the Obama administration’s economic team. The President-elect is scheduled to introduce this team to the nation on Monday afternoon, and analysts are hopeful that with the new administration starting to take shape, it will have a confidence boosting effect on investors, and U.S. citizens as whole.

• Fannie Mae Faces Possible De-Listing From NYSE - Editor, 19 November 2008 - No Comments yet

Embattled mortgage backer, Fannie Mae, revealed on Tuesday that it had received notification from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) that its shares currently fail to fulfill price-related requirements for listing on the exchange. One of the NYSE requirements for continued listing is that the average closing price of a stock remains above $1 per share. Fannie Mae stock was trading at levels as high as $40.45 around a year ago, but on Tuesday closed at 47 cents, underscoring just how dire the once mighty mortgage backer’s circumstances have become.

• G20 Summit Aims For Agreement On Global Finance Regulations - Editor, 14 November 2008 - No Comments yet

Ahead of the much publicized G20 economic crisis summit to take place in Washington tomorrow, 15 November, President George W. Bush has come out strongly in defense of U.S.-style free enterprise, more commonly referred to as capitalism, and cautioned foreign leaders against crushing global growth by implementing restrictive rules. He is reported as saying that the aim of the summit should not be to put additional government in place, but rather that government should be smarter. Why did Bush feel the need to defend capitalism so vehemently? It appears that many of the countries that will be participating in tomorrow’s summit are laying the blame for the current crisis squarely at the feet of capitalism – and by extension the United States.

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