Saturday, August 20, 2011

The globe is screaming Bear Market - This is not just over-reacting markets

Media coverage is running rampant, markets are taking a hammering, yet recovering, sovereign debt is sky high, yet many Government's keep highlighting the markets are just over-reacting from scar tissue from 2008. However the globe is screaming bear market. 


Now incredibly, nearly three years later and in spite of central banks and powerful governments taking unprecedented and historic measures to right the global economy, we find ourselves steadily drifting toward the white water of another financial waterfall.


1. Standard & Poor’s downgraded, rightly or wrongly, the U.S. credit rating with a negative outlook. Over the medium term, this can’t be good for equities markets or corporate profits as confidence has been damaged, interest rates will very likely rise, growth will probably slow and all of this could work together to easily tip an economy that grew at just 0.8% in the first quarter into a double-dip recession.


2. China pounced on the U.S. downgrade, but things aren't so rosy for the dragon either, as its economy slides into contraction, according to a recent purchasing-managers index from HBSC that came in at 49.3 for July — a level not seen since the end of the financial crisis in March 2009.


3. Italy and Spain continue their convulsions, so strong and persistent that an emergency weekend phone meeting was called among European leaders, a couple of whom had to interrupt their near-sacrosanct August vacations to attend. German investor sentiment and PMI are also in decline, and a slowing German economy can only add to the already dour outlook for the once-shining euro and the global economy.


4. Economic reports at home continue to be dismal and clearly indicate a slowing second quarter on top of a razor-thin, first-quarter growth rate that makes for a difficult math problem to come out with a positive bottom line for the second half of 2011.


Global Government's need to take action, rather than 'out-skirt' economic management and realise traditional principles of economic policy and management have failed miserably. Highlighting markets over-reacting is a cop-out and proper economic management is a MUST

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