Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Phisix, Most Global Markets Enter Bear Territory

A Technical definition of a Bear Market is when benchmarks decline by 20% from its highs.

Today’s huge 5% decline brings the Phisix officially to bear territory.

We aren’t alone though. Half of the global markets are in bear territory following yesterday and today's carnage. According to Bloomberg,

"More than half of the world's biggest stock indexes fell into a bear market as mounting concern about a U.S. recession dragged down banking and retail shares across Asia, Europe and Latin America.

“The MSCI World Index's 3 percent decline yesterday, the steepest since 2002, left benchmarks in France, Mexico, Italy and 35 other countries at least 20 percent below their recent highs. Declines today turned Indonesia, India, the Philippines, Taiwan and Thailand into bear markets as well...

“Among 80 equity national equity benchmarks tracked by Bloomberg, indexes in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Namibia, the Netherlands, Norway, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Venezuela and Vietnam have also dropped at least 20 percent from recent highs.’…

“Fed funds futures show that 72 percent of traders expect the Federal Reserve to cut its benchmark rate to 3.5 percent from 4.25 percent on Jan. 30. Banks and consumer stocks have failed to recover even after policy makers lowered the target rate for overnight loans between banks three times since September from 5.25 percent."

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