Word: indexers
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...news feel as it helps cash-strapped American consumers the most - but the cost of an entire range of commodities has also plunged in the past quarter: copper, gold, nickel and steel have all fallen as global demand has weakened. One popular gauge of commodity prices, the Reuters CRB Index, tumbled 22.3% in October, the biggest drop in the index's 48-year history. (See pictures of the global financial crisis...
...markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent." Considering the recent volatility in stocks worldwide, irrationality appears to be the order of the day. Rarely have investors been so prone to bouts of panic selling, punctuated by spasms of equally frenzied buying. The Dow Jones Industrial Average index lost nearly a quarter of its value between Oct. 1 and Oct. 27, including an epic 700-point drop on Oct. 15. The carnage was followed on Oct. 28 by a 900-point rise, the second largest points gain on record...
...harder to determine is how much further stock prices must fall before recession is fully priced into shares, taking into account weakening corporate earnings. In past severe downturns, when the U.S. economy contracted by 2.5% or more, the average price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of S&P 500 index stocks has dipped to as low as 10 (the long-term average P/E is 21). From where we stand today, stocks must drop quite a bit more before they reach this historical nadir. How far? Based on 2008 corporate-earnings estimates, the average P/E for the S&P 500 index...
...will be longer than the usual 18 months. The recovery will probably be anemic and for the next few years the U.S. economy is likely to grow below potential. That's the best-case scenario. It suggests that we are many months, and perhaps thousands of Dow index points, from a market bottom...
...pain in property and construction has spread. Estonia's stock index is down 60% in the past year. Tourist numbers have fallen. A third of restaurants in Tallinn's old city center are expected to close in the next few months. It doesn't help that a diplomatic spat between Estonia and Russia, which erupted last year following Estonia's decision to relocate a Russian war memorial, has resulted in a 30% drop in exports through Estonia's ports. Combine all that bad news and it's little wonder that Estonia's unemployment rate, just 4.7% in 2007, is predicted...