Word: panic
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...hammer was supposed to be the famous $700 billion bailout bill that Congress signed last week, in which Paulson and Co. were given wide berth to do what they needed to ease the financial panic that all but froze credit markets. Much of the discussion, and the planning, has revolved around how the government would buy up the toxic securities such as CDOs (collateralized debt obligations) that are now poisoning bank balance sheets. The thinking has been that once financial institutions can unload this trash on the government, the gears of commerce will move again. But that takes time...
Historians trying to decide when the Panic of 2008 began may look to the morning of Oct. 6, when the U.S. government's vaunted $700 billion rescue plan barely slowed the market meltdown. The usually ebullient CNBC host Jim Cramer went on Today and implored, "Whatever money you need for the next five years, please take it out of the market right now." Retirees were frantic. Even Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, his face a rictus of worry, said the economy probably won't improve until next year. Stocks veered wildly...
...Weiss believes these banks are far less likely to run aground than the panic-induced price of credit-default swaps would suggest. But since the demise of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, "people have no idea how sound banks are," he says, so "the whole financial system is locking up." The U.S. government's rescue plan should help, and Weiss thinks there's a fair chance that the busted assets it's buying to prop up the system will rise sharply in value as everything stabilizes. But he's by no means confident that the $700 billion bet will...
...Given this extreme uncertainty, Weiss is sitting on more cash than ever before. One reason is that he expects further mayhem as leveraged hedge funds are hit increasingly hard by margin calls and shareholder redemptions, forcing them to sell investments to raise cash. Yet amid the panic, Weiss admits he's turning bullish: "People are freaking out, and it's a good time to make money when everybody is freaking out." One shell-shocked area where he's finding extraordinary bargains: illiquid funds with troubled investments in property. "You might very well lose all your money," says Weiss, "but there...
...Masaaki Kanno, chief economist at JPMorgan Securities in Japan, summed up the frantic day in Asia. "Investor sentiment is in panic," Kanno said over the prospect of the spreading financial crisis dragging the global economy into a severe recession. The latest economic indicators are fueling this loss of confidence. For example, Japan's corporate bankruptcies jumped 34% in September, the largest increase since 2000, according to Tokyo Shoko Research...