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Sunday, October 12, 2008

2008 World financial crisis‏

It is shaping up to be one of the most tumultuous times on record in the global financial markets. World financial markets fell sharply on Black Monday 6 October 2008 with stock exchanges in Brazil and Russia suspended after huge falls.

In the United Kingdom, £93 billion pounds were wiped-out from London shares in one day, the worst performance in 20 years. In Iceland, the Prime Minister says that the whole country may go bankrupt. It's currency fell over 30% in a single day against the Euro.

In Belgium, the country's largest banking group, Fortis has been nationalised.

In Germany, the country's second-biggest commercial property lender, Hypo Real Estate collapsed and was bailed out by the federal government last week. Today, it collapsed again. A new bail-out was arranged with guarantees of 50 billion euros ($68bn; £38.7bn), 15 billion euros more than the first rescue attempt.

The international financial crisis exposed the cracks in the European Union's single market. The EU countries are acting to prop up their own banks and financial institutions. Ireland was the first to break ranks by guaranteeing savers' money. Greece, Sweden, Austria and Denmark have all followed suit. And of course, the pledge by Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel to guarantee private deposit accounts has sown confusion and chaos in the markets.

THE CASUALTIES

As the global financial crisis has worsened, the number of firms to crumble or be bought out has increased.



BAIL-OUT BILL

Governments have spent billions of dollars on rescue packages, led by the US with its $700bn rescue package.



THE MARKETS

FTSE 100 4589.19 -391.06 -7.85%
Dax 5387.01 -410.02 -7.07%
Cac 40 3711.98 -368.77 -9.04%
Dow Jones 9955.50 -369.88 -3.58%
Nasdaq 1862.96 -84.43 -4.34%

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