Wall Street mulls the next move!

These days the Wall Street is in an introspective phase as it mulls the 'mood' of the market. The question on every one's mind is as to whether the market has bottomed out or is there more to come. With most of the analysts predicting that the market has not yet bottomed out and that it will require a huge catalyst, a miracle for most, in order to change the mood of the market, it may be quite some time before the market recovers.

But of late, the market seems to have lost the downward momentum causing many to ponder if the bearish mood of the market has come to an end. There have been some good news on the housing market and hopes are high that the bull will soon run amok at Wall Street. But that may not happen for some time to come on account of the surge in Oil prices, increasing by as much as 30% in the last three months. The pressure of the Oil prices reflect on most of the other financial markets with investors being a bit wary. So the anticipated change in the momentum of the Wall Street may well occur after the Oil rates come down a bit. But if they do not, then with increased inflationary pressures, one can only bite ones nails and hope that OPEC sees reason soon and increases the supply to counter the demand on Oil.

Bond insurers breathe a sign of relief!

With the news that Standard & Poor's affirmed its ratings for Ambac Financial Group Inc. and MBIA Inc., the Wall Street shot off as though Popeye had eaten a whole tub of spinach. These days any news, no matter the size, big or small is bound to get the markets up and going.

Everyone had thought that the Bond insurers were going to get rated down in face of their exposure to the Subprime mess, but that does not seem to be the case at least for now. For the moment, the ratings stand especially for Ambac group. Had the ratings dropped, the consumer confidence, or what little is left of it these days, would have headed all the way down. The Dow Jones industrials bolted the corral by 190 paces or to be more precise, by 190 points. Would the momentum carry on to tomorrow, let us hope that is the case indeed!

Retail boosts up Wall Street!

The unexpected retail sales data has given a welcome boost to Wall Street which has managed to rally quite well until now. If the momentum continues, then this may well have a cascading effect on all the other markets, all over the world. But such boosts are only short lived and if this market is to take on this momentum then it may need more good news than the ones of the other kind!

Fed announces new plan to rescue mortgage defaulters!

This is a good move by the feds and may well stop the unemployment rate in its tracks, well; it may not stop it altogether but should at the least lessen it. This is indeed a very good move for many reasons, for one, it should take some of the bite out of the current mortgage crisis that seems to be facing the American markets.

What many people do not seem to have considered is that if all the mortgage defaulters were thrown out of their homes, then the various companies would not be all that eager to hire them. Everyone must have a real address that they can call 'home' so as to get legally employed.

So if a defaulter was to be thrown out of his or her home, then that person, by law cannot be gainfully employed and would probably be begging a living under one of the overpass.

This move by the Fed is one that should have been taken a long time ago, but then again, it is better to be late than never.

With the current mortgage crisis spiraling out of control the next move by the fed should aim at regulating the housing markets and after that, the fed should concentrate on the banks and pressurize them to increase lending so as to prevent any further credit crisis from hitting the consumer on the street. It is a long way to go and the first step, the most important one has finally been taken by the Fed today!

Bush says the economy is sound in the long term!

Bush says that the economy is sound in the long term and that is something that we all know. The problem is that the markets do not seem to know that are still very much bearish than bullish.
Just a statment from the president is not going to set things straight and it may need some deft handling by the Fed before the economy is back to square one. This is going to be one tough kitty to handle but handle they must, for the whole world is watching to see what the Fed does next!

Wall Street floating on high expectations!

After the Friday losses, a badly shaken Wall Street is keeping its hopes up in anticipation of another slash in the rates by the Fed. It seems that these days the market seems to follow a philosophy of 'one day at a time'. The recent dismal showing by the housing market is still setting waves in the industry with more and more banks introducing more and more stringent rules regarding loans. Let us just say that the lending part by the banks is going to become less and less for the near future.
With such a poor showing and a fall by more than 26% in the sales of new homes, the markets reacted with a 'knee jerk' reaction. That is only to be expected.

But would the Fed slash rates this soon and if they do so, what would be the impact on an already weak Dollar? Wouldn't there be a free fall? As it is the Dollar has lost so much of its value against a host of major currencies and today it holds supreme only over those currencies whose rates are still stringently controlled by their central banks. My two bits is that the Fed would slash the rates but it may not come as early as the wall street thinks. It would probably happen around the end of the fiscal year, thereby giving the new Financial year a boost as well. But then again, it may happen soon, either way, it is time for a martini, dry, shaken but not stirred!

It is the turn of the Merrill Lunch now!

Just a couple of days ago it was the turn of the JP Morgan to post a rather poor Q4 report and now it is the turn of the Merrill Lynch to do the same. It seems that although many people may think that the worst of the sub prime after effects are over, more and more companies are coming out with new and undisclosed losses.
The markets are getting most of their profits wiped off the board and the investors are getting quite 'antsy'.
Although Merrill Lych did post a poor Q4 report, the outlook according to it seems to be rosy. Merrill Lynch seems to be under the impression that the economy is going to recover the very next day, but that may just be a pipe dream as of yet. With people not willing to spend as much as they may have, it is going to be one tough act to pull this economy up!

The Wall street mirage!

It seems that the Wall street seems to have gained as a result of the Beige book,the report by the Fed indicating that the economy may have slowed down a little but that is a natural process and that the recession has not yet come to haunt the Wall street. Most of the newspapers and the periodicals seem to go about saying that the Wall street rebounded sharply, but that was not the case.
The Wall street did rebound but not as sharply as one would have liked it to. There is some momentum in the market but that is only to be expected and it is the Fed report that is giving this market some buoyancy and not the market itself. What is more, this momentum may be nothing more of a mirage and that the dark days may come sooner than later.
I probably sound like a doomsday prophet, but the fact of the matter is that the sub prime crisis and the mortgage issues have not yet disappeared and that the unemployment rate is bound to sharply increase in the coming months. So to actually say that the Wall street is not going to be affected is kind of behaving like an Ostrich burying its head in the sand.

The online investments!

There are many online investments that just call out to us to dump our hard earned money into their investment plans. But one should be all the more careful when it comes to online investments. There are many people out there who would like nothing better than to get their grubby hands on our money and as such, I have to say that finding a decent investment to shore up our money with is kind of like searching for a minute needle in a huge haystack.
Sometimes the search is endless and it goes on and on with so many websites being there for a year or so and then closing shop. But one of the recent ones that I have found online turned out to be the real thing. It is called Etrade and it is registered with the US regulators and the right agencies. They are what you can term loosely as share brokers and they do a damm good job so that your investment earns anywhere between 15 -35% and the returns are further compounded. I have been utilising their services for the last few months and I have to say that I have been pleasantly surprised, what is more, I hope to find more sites like these soon!

The Volatile markets!

The Mumbai stock markets has been seeing rather a volatile trading session today. The market has been in the grip of a rather furious bull run which had pushed the stock indices to new heights. The BSE itself had crossed the 19,000 mark. As a way of controlling further FII's into the markets the SEBI had announced that it may take a look at regulating the P notes. These 'p notes' are one of the ways by which the FII's dump their money into the markets.
As a result of that news, the markets crashed right away losing almost 1700 basis points and then the circuit breakers were hit and trading was suspended. After statements from the finance minister indicating that the 'p notes' were not being banned in any form, the markets recovered rapidly and then dropped all over again. Today , the markets closed down at 17,000 and odd, down by 717 basis points. The shares moved in a broad range of 17,771-19,198 levels before closing at 17,998 levels. Will the Bull still run the markets tomorrow and will it still be volatile?
Lets hope that tomorrow is a better day for the markets at large!

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