Nowhere to run, nowhere hide, or so it seems in recent weeks. Last week was no exception, and the havoc continued across the globe yesterday and continued into the trading in northern hemisphere markets.
Markets tumbled around the world, the euro fell sharply against the yen and the US dollar;oil dropped below $US90 a barrel and the Australian dollar plunged by over 5% in a matter of hours.
Volatile market conditions contributed to very strong trading across the equity order books of the London Stock Exchange Group during September. £302.8 billion (€383.1 billion) worth of equity trading was carried out during the month, an increase of 24 per cent on September 2007, while the total number of trades increased 62 per cent to 27.1 million.
US markets rose strongly, cutting Monday's losses in half as investors went all optimistic and bet the $US700 billion bailout package would be approved.
US politicians bailed out of helping correct the mess they and their financial groups created on Monday, sending the world economy into waters not visited since the Great Depression.
Australian financial stocks took heart from the move by US investment legend, Warren Buffet to $US5 billion ($A6 billion) in newly created commercial bank, Goldman Sachs Group and to take options to put in a further $US5 billion over the next year.
World markets steadied overnight after major central banks revealed huge large-scale emergency $US180 billion injections of dollar liquidity in an attempt to halt the global financial market crisis.
American markets fell by up to 4.7% on the S&P 500, London was down, cash dried up around the world, Australian market could be down sharply at the open and Russia froze.
