[abhijitaparadh]

US markets tumble again. DOW down 3.5% Nasdaq down 4%

MS and GS take big hit despite declaring decent Q3 (read profit)

The whole investment banking business model is being questioned now.

Fed rescued AIG with $85 billion.

Global markets set to collapse tomorrow again.

[penpavan]

The Sensex has broken 11,000 level and made a new 2008-low. The 30-stocks index is below 11,000 for the first time after August 10, 2006. The Nifty has also fallen below 3500 for the first time since September 2006. It is currently trading below 3400, at 3396, down 209 points from the previous close. Sensex is at 10,974, down 720 points.

Source: Indian stock markets: Mutual funds, Sensex, Nifty

Damn, no low is low enough to invest!!

[snaronikar]

Yeah...I have some sizeable investments. I'am keeping invested till it bounces back no matter if it takes a couple of years also. Nowadays, I have stopped keeping track of this. It just gives me a heartbreak.

There is one more thread for the stock market itself.You can discuss in there.

@Mods: Pls merge this thread to stock market thread.

[Steeroid]

Should go down further - there's carnage in the global markets and money is hard to come by as everyone is pulling their funds back in. Banks are not even willing to lend to each other . Short-term working capital arrangements are also becoming very very expensive to source, forget long-term facilities.

Dont know whats happening, but the one good fallout of this is that Oil has slipped below $90 too.

The way "revered & respected" financial institutions like Merryl Lynch, Morgan Stanley & Lehmann Brothers (as well as AIG) folded up so quickly reminds you of the way the WTC fell on 9/11 - so quickly and so neatly that you end up wondering whether all that happened was a neat set-up.

[hvkumar]

Total meltdown, 10800 levels now @1113 am

[hemanthisgreat]

So would this be a good time to invest or should wait for further meltdown.

[ajmat]

Better to invest when a clear upturn happens than assuming rock bottom is being hit

[iceman91]

agree with ajmat, unless you are willing to invest again at lower prices therby average the costs.

[hvkumar]

No chances of markets bottoming out in immediate term, the way things are going, bad news every day, and cascading effect making more impact. Look at today's situation, Indonesia is closed (10% down), Japan is almost 10% down.......

[jagan0677]

Originally Posted by Steeroid

The way "revered & respected" financial institutions like Merryl Lynch, Morgan Stanley & Lehmann Brothers (as well as AIG) folded up so quickly reminds you of the way the WTC fell on 9/11 - so quickly and so neatly that you end up wondering whether all that happened was a neat set-up.

+1
Steer, your comparison is spot on.
Methinks you should add names of Fannie, Freddie, AIG. I am sure more names would come as days go by.

[Steeroid]

Originally Posted by jagan0677

I am sure more names would come as days go by.

Oh more names have gone down in the US - dozens of smaller banks. Its just that the noise created by the big names has distracted attention from them or they have wisely chosen the same timeframe to file for bankruptsy (sic?) in the wisdom that the media glare is still on the big boys.

[amitoj]

Add Barclays also to the list. The British govt has stepped in to save the bank though.
Free Market proponents will shout foul even louder now.

[dkhatau]

Still wait before investing in stock markets as the saying goes that never catch a falling knife.

[jaysmokesleaves]

This sounds scary:
After banks, nations: Iceland close to bankruptcy: Source> TOI
link here :
After banks, nations: Iceland close to bankruptcy-Intl Business-Business-The Times of India

This is the article:
REYKJAVIK, Iceland: This volcanic island near the Arctic Circle is on the brink of becoming the first "national bankruptcy" of the global financia
l meltdown.

Home to just 320,000 people on a territory the size of Kentucky, Iceland has formidable international reach because of an outsized banking sector that set out with Viking confidence to conquer swaths of the British economy - from fashion retailers to top soccer teams.

The strategy gave Icelanders one of the world's highest per capita incomes. But now they are watching helplessly as their economy implodes - their currency losing almost half its value, and their heavily exposed banks collapsing under the weight of debts incurred by lending in the boom times.

"Everything is closed. We couldn't sell our stock or take money from the bank," said Johann Sigurdsson as he left a branch of Landsbanki in downtown Reykjavik.

The government had earlier announced it had nationalized the bank under emergency laws enacted to deal with the crisis.

"We have been forced to take decisive action to save the country," Prime Minister Geir H. Haarde said of those sweeping new powers that allow the government to take over companies, limit the authority of boards, and call shareholder meetings.

A full-blown collapse of Iceland's financial system would send shock waves across Europe, given the heavy investment by Icelandic banks and companies across the continent.

One of Iceland's biggest companies, retailing investment group Baugur, owns or has stakes in dozens of major European retailers - including enough to make it the largest private company in Britain, where it owns a handful of stores such as the famous toy store Hamley's.

Kaupthing, Iceland's largest bank and one of those whose share trading was suspended last week to stop a huge sell-off, has also invested in European retail groups.

Thousands of Britons have accounts with Icesave, the online arm of Landsbanki that regulators said was likely to file for bankruptcy after it stopped permitting customers to withdraw money from their accounts Tuesday.

To try to wrest control of the spiraling situation, the government also loaned $680m to Kaupthing to tide it over and said it was negotiating a $5.4bn loan from Russia to shore up the nation's finances.

The speed of Iceland's downfall in the week since it announced it was nationalizing Glitnir bank, the country's third largest, caught many by surprise despite warnings that it was the "canary in the coal mine" of the global credit squeeze.

Famous for its cod fishing industry, geysers, moonscape and the Blue Lagoon, Iceland was the site of the Cold War showdown in which Bobby Fischer of the United States defeated Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union in 1972 for the world chess championship. Last year, Iceland won the UN's "best country to live in" poll, with its residents deemed the most contented in the world.

Despite sunny skies on Tuesday after three days of unseasonably cold weather, Reykjavik's mood remained grim - cafes were half-empty, real estate agents sat idle, and retailers reported few sales.

"I'm really starting to get worried now. Everything is bad news. I don't know what's happening," said retiree Helga Jonsdottir as she headed to a supermarket.

Icelanders are also beginning to question how a relative few were able to generate the disproportionate wealth - and associated debt - that Haarde has warned puts the entire country at risk of bankruptcy.

Iceland's reinvention from the poor cousin in Europe to one of the region's wealthiest countries dates to the deregulation of the banking industry and the creation of the domestic [COLOR=blue][COLOR=blue ! important][FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][COLOR=blue ! important][FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]stock [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=blue ! important][FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]market[/FONT][/COLOR][/FONT][/COLOR][/COLOR] in the mid-1990s.

Those free market reforms turned Iceland from a conservative, inward-looking country to one of a new generation of internationally educated young businessmen and women who were determined to give Iceland a modern profile far beyond its fishing base.

Entrepreneurs become its greatest export, as banks and companies marched across Europe and their acquisition wallets were filled by a stock market boom and a well-funded pension system. Among the purchases were the iconic Hamley's toy store and the West Ham soccer team.

Back home, the average family's wealth soared 45 percent in half a decade and gross domestic product rose at around 5 percent a year.

But the whole system was built on a shaky foundation of foreign debt.

The country's top four banks now hold foreign liabilities in excess of $100bn, debts that dwarf Iceland's gross domestic product of $14bn.

Those external liabilities mean the private sector has had great difficulty financing its debts, such as the more than $5.25bn racked up by Kaupthing in five years to help fund British deals.

Iceland is unique "because the sheer size of its financial sector puts it in a vulnerable situation, and its currency has always been seen as a high risk and high yield," said Venla Sipila, a senior economist at Global Insight in London.

The krona is suffering in part from a withdrawal by a falloff in what are called carry trades - where investors borrow cheaply in a country with low rates, such as Japan, and invest in a country where returns, and often risks, are higher.

After watching the free-fall for several days, the Central Bank of Iceland stepped in Tuesday to fix the exchange rate of the currency at 175 - a level equal to 131 krona against the euro.

Haarde said he believed the measures had renewed confidence in the system. He also was critical of the lack of an Europe-wide response to the crisis, saying Iceland had been forced to adopt an "every-country-for-itself" mentality.

He acknowledged that Iceland's financial reputation was likely to suffer from both the crisis and the response despite strong fundamentals such as the fishing industry and clean and renewable energy resources.

As regular Icelanders begin to blame the government and market regulators, Haarde said the banks had been "victims of external circumstances."

Richard Portes of the London Business School agreed, noting the banks were well-capitalized and had not bought any of the toxic debt that has brought down banks elsewhere.

"I believe it is absolutely wrong to say these banks were reckless," said. "Quite the contrary. They were hugely unlucky."

[hvkumar]

Bloomberg reports that banks in UK, Spain and Italy are in for some solid cash infusions to prop them up. Indonesia market is closed.