Certainly, the huge declines we saw in the stock market following the credit crisis suggested there were no buyers left.
Aside from national security and public safety, what is the number one service provided by the government without which there would be no capitalism, no banks, no stock market, no credit, no large scale enterprises, and no modern economy at all?
Quite apart from the risk that some crisis in a currency or stock or credit swap market could cause a meltdown on Wall Street, there is the risk that the public could turn against securities firms, especially those that so visibly wear multiple hats.
The other metric that we follow very closely is credit spreads, and this is the difference between the yield between the sub-investment-grade bonds and the ten-year Treasuries, where the recent monthly returns in the stock market is favorable, when credit spreads are normal, compared to when spreads are very wide.
Investors around the world fled the stock market on combined fears of drying credit and slowing economic activity.
But don't be misled by stock market gloom and lurid headlines on the credit crisis.
The apparent acknowledgement by the Euro countries of the severity of their problem is getting much of the credit for the strong stock market.
"Eventful" may be a horribly euphemistic adjective to describe the last 12 months in the stock market, rife with bailouts, bankruptcies, credit problems and collapses of major financial institutions.
Many private investors had got money on credit to play the seemingly unstoppable stock market, just as some of their 1990s counterparts play today's market by "margin" trading on the internet.
With free flowing credit, unemployment remained low and the stock market soared to record highs.
Like Treasury securities, issues without the pristine credit quality of Uncle Sam have also notched stock market-beating total returns.
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The existence of the potential for abuse, however, is no more an indictment of credit derivatives generally than it is of the stock market or any other useful tool of society than can sometimes be abused.
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Stock market is up temporarily, way too soon to be giving the man credit for what wall street has done.
Even though the response to this crisis is aimed at credit markets, lawmakers are paying close attention to the stock market.
This phenomenon, in concert with the ongoing and possibly deepening global credit crisis, could also result in unprecedented volatility in the stock market, not to mention currency crises and related economic dislocation.
Not only is the market not giving SanDisk any credit for growth, it is docking the stock with a 35% decline in profits with no potential for growth from that depressed level.
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Another news story that was blown out of proportion was the notional value of credit default swaps and the power of those swaps to keep the stock market headed downward, during the recent bear market.
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Last year, particularly as credit markets began to tighten, McMoRan had a rocky ride in the stock market.
When history books are written on the last several years my only hope is that proper credit is given to the creative financing which was the direct catalyst for the stock market bottom and subsequent rise.
My research for It Was a Very Good Year found two themes that linked most of those years: (a) either the economy or the market started off at a depressed level and (b) an easing of credit boosted stock prices.
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Separately, the Treasury announced it would increase the mortgage firms' credit lines and might buy their shares, which have been under enormous pressure in the stock market.
For the second quarter, average daily shares traded on the NYSE and Nasdaq Stock Market are down 1% and 10%, respectively, compared with the same period a year earlier, says Credit Suisse research.
Another problem, of course, is the elimination of the "up-tick" rule, a controversial SEC rule change last July (well-timed to the beginning of the credit market meltdown) that removed the rule that short-selling could only be done when a stock was rising.
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