background image
The essential business management resource

KnowledgeBrief > KnowledgeBlog

Financial Markets - Dec 2nd

Posted: December 2nd, 2008 under Business, Finance.
Tags: , ,

Justin Gowen at December 2, 2008 : 2:27 pm

The post-Thanksgiving rally only lasted one day this year.

Usually the markets enter December in a good mood, as the first weekend after the Thanskgiving holiday is when US consumers start their spending and stock markets rally as the sound of ringing tills signals Christmas shopping season is underway and earnings forecasts remain achieveable.  This year the world is clearly a different place.  After a feeble 100 point climb in the Dow on Friday, yesterday we closed down close to 8% and the broader based S&P 500 ended the day close to 9% in negative territory.  Evidently earnings estimates are still expected to be tough to meet.

Asian markets picked up on the negative sentiment with indeces closing down between 4% and 6%.  Negative economic data continues to flow out of the region with the previously impervious Chinese manufacturing sector now pointing towards a recession.  This time last year such thoughts were not even on the agenda.

The European markets initially opened with red flashing everywhere, and with bond credit risk indeces reaching new wide levels, it seemed as though the mood was going to continue.  However even with recession news stories abound, with the UK MPC meeting on Thursday now expecting to produce another 100bp cut, and the Fed making noises that, if needed, zero rates are not off the agenda, the mood shifted.  Stock markets bounced into positive territory in Europe, and in the US futures rallied to signal a positive open.

We are expecting December to be a quiet month as we move towards the end of what has been an historic year.  General themes we are looking at : continued deleveraging, risk appetite reduction, the effects this will have as we move into 2009, and any sign of potential improvement to the global economic outlook.

VN:F [1.1.4_465]
Rating: 4.0/5 (4 votes cast)


1 Comment »

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment

Bookmark & Share

Join KnowlegeBrief

Subscriptions - Subscribe to get instant online access to over 100 essential business management concepts, the essential business management resource.

From just: £3.95

Categories

Tags

Recent Posts

Blogroll

Admin

In a world of information overload, KnowledgeBrief brings simplicity to subject area knowledge. We scour the empirical research and provide a concise and consistent overview in unique formats. Whether you are in management, are a student, or just want to improve your understanding of business, start here.

The essential business management resource. For all the business management knowledge you need, as you need it. Business Resources | Management Networks | Executive Development © Copyright KnowledgeBrief 2009

Welcome to KnowledgeBrief

KnowledgeBrief filters information from multiple media such as the internet, text books and periodicals to identify the most important subject area knowledge. KnowledgeBrief is not a substitute for in depth research – we make the critical knowledge quickly accessible and point the way for further reading.

KnowledgeBrief brings brevity, simplicity and structure to subject area knowledge.

Member Login

Username:
Password:
Register / My Account / Forgotten Password?