Word: panic
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Indeed, shorting strategies have been widely blamed for exacerbating volatility. On Oct. 28, German automaker Volkswagen briefly became the world's most valuable company when hedge funds that had shorted the company's stock on the premise that it was overvalued were forced to buy it back in a panic after smaller rival Porsche announced that it had secretly bought up a sizable share of VW. The stock's rollercoaster ride may have cost short-sellers up to $40 billion...
...first formal public defense and explanation of his actions since the dust settled from the financial panic of late September and early October, and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson had clearly been thinking about it for a while. Normally a believer in brevity, especially at press conferences, he arrived in the Treasury press room Wednesday morning with a 3,500-word speech prepared. He then proceeded to read the whole thing, taking a few big swigs of water along the way, before hoarsely submitting to questions...
...possible that the panic never would have happened if Paulson and Federal Reserve officials hadn't allowed Lehman to fail. Although, given how much criticism they got for their semi-bailout of Bear Stearns in March, it's easy enough to see where that decision came from. Less easy to understand is why Paulson initially stubbornly insisted that the bailout bill be structured as an asset-purchase plan - it's still called the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP - rather than as a straightforward recapitalization of troubled banks. Treasury has since switched to the latter approach, so far putting...
...French business and military interests, French authorities on Tuesday nabbed a group of anarchists suspected of having sabotaged the nation's high-speed rail system over the last several weeks. The arrests aim not only to put an end to the spate of vandalism that had wreaked havoc and panic among French travelers for the past two weeks; they may also derail any violent plans French anarchists might have been preparing with like-minded extremists with whom authorities say they were in contact in Germany, Belgium, and the U.K. (See Today in Pictures...
John Maynard Keynes famously warned that "the 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...