The rapid growth of electronic trading
since 1976 has benefited equity market participants by improving competition, reducing cost and increasing liquidity while insuring better pricing.
One unexpected side effect has been the recent emergence of
"dark pools of liquidity", or the secret stock market.
[more inside]
posted by Mutant
on May 20, 2008 -
21 comments
While the US equities markets were closed on Monday for Martin Luther King Day, stock markets around the world took a nosedive,
losing billions in equity; the markets in
Australia,
South Korea,
Japan,
China,
Indonesia, Hong Kong,
Germany,
France,
the UK, and
more countries have dropped at least 5% each (
Canada only fell 4.75%), even though most of those markets had already been seriously down for several days prior.
India has been hit particularly hard, at one point down a whopping 11%, tripping their markets' automatic
"circuit breakers" for a mandatory time-out period, before scraping back up to close at
8% down. US futures markets are
currently predicting a 650+ point drop just at the open Tuesday morning, before even a single trade goes through.
[more inside]
posted by Asparagirl
on Jan 22, 2008 -
306 comments
At a time when fed-up American citizens are
petitioning Congress to end the imprudent financial practices that caused the
housing bubble sub-prime mortgage crisis liquidity crisis impending recession -- including the banning of
SIV's and
refusing any bailouts for Wall Street, banks, or mortgage companies -- the United States Treasury Department
has just announced the creation of a giant-mega-ultra SIV called "M-LEC" made up of assets from several of the largest American banks. Already unofficially nicknamed "Sivie Mae" (or worse,
"the Frankenstein Fund"), it would be an off-balance-sheet way for these banks to pool and price the
ABCP's that they've lately been having trouble pricing and thus selling -- i.e. the liquidity crisis.
[more inside]
posted by Asparagirl
on Oct 16, 2007 -
82 comments
Someone we trust says something reassuring. Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, arguably the most powerful man in the world, blames "infectious greed" for the recent panic-like tail-spins on Wall Street, but says that the economy is on the way to recovery. One comment held that Greenspan was finally able to let out how he feels about what's going on, without shrouding his opinion in economic jibber-jabber.
"For once he really spoke his mind. He usually tends to obfuscate things quite a bit."
But really, how many of you expected Greenspan to say anything other than "the fundamentals are in place for a return to sustained healthy growth"? Does Greenspan actually feel this way? Could it be that he is actually majorly pessimistic, but is using his soothing sweet-song voice and obvious clout and earned respect to somehow buck recent trends? Bush's speech didn't do much for our faltering economy, but will Greenspan's? Can one man's mere words possibly change the course of history? Well?
posted by Hammerikaner
on Jul 16, 2002 -
27 comments
