The Economist - Booms and busts, Dec 18th 2008

Kylie performing this year at th O2 will be paid £2 million for a 60 minute gig in Dubai courtesy of metro.co.uk

THE fireworks could be seen from space (allegedly), putting China’s Olympic displays to shame. Hollywood celebrities studded a guest-list of 2,500 people. Kylie Minogue, a diminutive Australian singer, cavorted in a gold and black corset designed by Jean-Paul Gaultier. Guests consumed an estimated 1.7 tonnes of lobster.

The launch party for the Atlantis hotel in Dubai on November 20th was a perfect, noisy finale to the world’s latest age of excess. But its loudest echoes—the man-made islands, the iconic hotels, the overheated property market, the celebrities and the sun—are from another, more distant time: south Florida in the 1920s.

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Associated Press, Oct 22, 2008

By STEVENSON JACOBS, AP Business Writer Stevenson Jacobs, Ap Business Writer

NEW YORK – Wall Street headed for a sharply lower open Wednesday as investors again shifted their focus away from improving credit markets and fixated on worrisome corporate earnings that are raising fears of a deep and painful recession.

While reduced strains in world credit markets have eased some investors’ nervousness about the economy, market anxiety remains high as hundreds of companies this week release third-quarter earnings and in some cases fourth-quarter forecasts that offer a glimpse of the rough conditions that may lay ahead.

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InformationWeek - October 9, 2008 05:12 PM

Virtually all tech categories fell after a few, like Apple and Research In Motion, bucked the trend with some gains a day earlier.

courtesy of sadguysontradingfloors.tumblr.com

By K.C. Jones

The Dow Jones industrial average continued its volatility with a decline of 7.33% to close at 8,579.91, as the Nasdaq index also declined and major tech companies fell with it on Thursday.

Just three weeks ago, as Lehman Brothers’ announced bankruptcy, technology insiders predicted that it would take at least six months for the sector to feel the pain of the credit crisis.

Companies that sell software, data storage products, networking goods and services, and other IT offerings hoped that they could target companies outside the financial industry and fare well. Many also hoped that it would take months before the broader economic volatility hit vendors.

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Businessweek - News October 9, 2008, 5:00PM EST

Rising rates are accelerating credit-card defaults and soured debt could further undermine the financial system

courtesy of SAM YEH/AFP/Getty Images

by Jessica Silver-Greenberg

The troubles sound familiar. Borrowers falling behind on their payments. Defaults rising. Huge swaths of loans souring. Investors getting burned. But forget the now-familiar tales of mortgages gone bad. The next horror for beaten-down financial firms is the $950 billion worth of outstanding credit-card debt—much of it toxic.

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CNNMoney - SPECIAL REPORT AMERICA’S MONEY CRISIS, Last Updated: October 3, 2008: 1:35 PM ET

Payrolls shrink by 159,000 - 9th straight month of cuts. ‘08 total: 760,000.

By Chris Isidore, CNNMoney.com senior writer

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Employers made deeper cuts in their payrolls in September, according to the Labor Department’s monthly jobs report, as the economy experienced the biggest drop in jobs in more than five years.

There was a net loss of 159,000 jobs in September, the ninth straight month the U.S. economy has lost jobs. The August job loss was revised to 73,000 jobs, taking year-to-date job losses to 760,000.

“This marks a clear downshift in the economy,” said Robert Dye, senior economist with PNC Financial Services Group.

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Wall Street in Crisis September 17, 2008, 5:08PM EST

What brought down the markets? Bad choices, greed—and never learning from past mistakes

by Paul Barrett

In times of high stress, many in the financial world seek solace in watery metaphors. We hear of vast irresistible forces converging in “perfect storms” and unforeseeable events contributing to “100-year floods.”

How could we have expected, let alone prevented, this?

Count on Warren E. Buffett to cut to the truth. Years ago, referring to reckless corporate debt, Buffett noted (or so the story goes): “You never know who is swimming naked until the tide goes out.”

The tide’s moving, and we’re starting to get the full, not-so-pretty view. Along with the bare swimmers emerging from the soggy murk, we’re being reminded of some of the dumb ideas and reckless choices that helped deliver us to our current debacle. As stunning as the scene seems, we’ve actually had plenty of experience with this sort of thing. But like some stubborn residents of hurricane zones, we swiftly choose to forget the last tempest and reassure ourselves that things will be different from now on. Why don’t we learn the obvious lesson to the contrary? Answers: the timeless power of hubris during periods when profits seem easy, and a set of foolish financial notions that have become prevalent over the past three decades.

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Businessweek - Market Snapshot September 19, 2008, 10:37AM EST

Haul out the printing presses, the Big Bailout is here!

Stock markets around the world surged Friday as governments from Washington to London to Moscow took bold steps to address the global financial crisis. U.S. indexes were set to jump at the start of trading Friday as major index futures posted big gains one day after a dramatic market rally spurred by late news of government efforts to address the crisis that has gripped financial markets around the world.

Bonds were lower as details of the plans emerged. The dollar index, down earlier this week, was higher. Gold futures, which had risen on safe haven buying, were sharply lower. Oil futures were higher.

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