Global Financial Panic: At Least We're Not Iceland...
Floyd Norris at the New York Times is live blogging the global financial panic today, and has compiled a list of how the world's markets have performed in October. Compared to some countries, our situation doesn't seem that bad. Which is scary.
Here's some of the list.
In each case, I took a major index from the country in question. All figures are in U.S. dollars.
U.S., down 26%
Canada. down 37%
Mexico, down 44%
Argentina, down 43%
Brazil, down 48%
Chile, down 30%
Peru, down 42%Britain, down 31%
Germany, down 35%
France, down 31%
Switzerland, down 20%
Italy, down 30%
Ireland, down 35%
Iceland, down 83%
Netherlands, down 35%
Belgium, down 37%
Denmark, down 35%
United Panic (liveblog) [NYT]
(Photo: stirwise )
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Comments:
USA! USA! USA!
I've heard a financial planner say that if the US has a cold, the rest of the world gets the flu.
He said that the US has pneumonia right now so sucks to be the rest of the world right now!
Boo Iceland going balls out in this economic shit race. If you're going to do it, do it right I guess. They must be taking the Max Power approach to this financial crysis.
Canada isn't really that bad. just our Dollar is low something like 70 cents US.
problem is, is that we are so closely tied with the states that when your economy is bad, ours is bad too.
we never had a poor housing sector. problem is that canadian's panic and think that the us economy is failing - i better sell my stocks!
kinda silly isn't it?
What about Russia, India and China?
This doesn't make any sense at all, it's all in dollar terms, and the dollar has significantly strengthened against most other currencies. A large part of the drop in each case is due to that, not any change in the local stock market. Totally meaningless.
UNEMPLOYED IN GREENALND?
or GREENLAND
I'm so happy Canadia is cheap again. That is as it should be!!!
(I love skiing there and it was so expensive last winter we couldn't afford it! Of course this year my BF's not getting a bonus so maybe we won't be able to afford it anyway...)
@pschroeter: Not sure about India and China, but Russia has been taking a BEATING mostly because of the drop in oil and gas prices.
A recent BusinessWeek article dealt with that.
So the largest consumer of goods is one of the largest debtors... interesting. Seems like a horrible catch-22 for everyone.
@B1663R: This depresses me. Whenever I mention that the state of the ecomomy scares me, and I want to get into a defensive ball and hide, I get told "We're better off than the US". Ummm, according to this, no, we're not, we're worse off. I don't believe that Ottawa is sheltered either... AAHHH!!! IT'S 1929 ALL OVER AGAIN!!!!
Though Canada's banking system was rated as the most stable worldwide.
@B1663R: Since Canada is the #1 energy supplier to the US... And Canada is the Homedepot where the US buys it raw materials... Of course when the US economy gets in trouble and slows down the Canadian economy also slows down.
The Banking sector in Canada was reported to be the strongest and healthiest in the world at the moment. OK, considering how flushed down the toilet most of the worlds banks are that makes this claim so much easier to make...
@crazyasianman: In all seriousness, this can't do anything positive for our standing in the world. Between our foreign policy and our financial state, other nations are likely to try to insulate themselves from us (and yes, I know, some already are taking steps in this direction). We will be left with no influence in the world, and further, we will have to go back to making our own goods.
Should the UN reconsider placing Iceland at the top of it's 'best places to live list' this year? lols.
@VigilanteKitteh: At least you know the Sens will make the playoffs.
Unless you're a Leafs fan, in which case ... sorry ...
This could be just posturing bullshit: the article writer who created the list chose "a major index" from each country. What "major index" was that? He didn't say. How well is that index keyed to a country's ability to measure financial health? No idea, obviously. Are these "major index"es measured the same way from country-to-country? NO idea because - again - he doesn't say.
Sounds like bunk to me. Iceland may have a stock market that's in the shitter, but if it's one of those 20k transactions a day kind of stock markets, it probably doesn't matter anyway. The only businesses that should really suffer when a stock market goes down big time should be the funds that build stock portfolios for clients even though the effects may be far off anyway.
Value of currence may change for reasons unrelated to the financial security of a country. The U.S. is running a deficit that exceeeds the ability of the device measuring it to display it. Countries like Sweden and Canada have deficits that are a fraction of the percentage of the GDP that the U.S. has, yet the greenback is soaring high right now.
What matters is: export vs. import, what the currence can buy the average person, wages and employment, inflation, (possibly) access to credit and - most importantly - quality of life.
He chose the biggest equity index in each country (i.e. the S&P 500 for the US markets, FTSE for UK, DAX for Germany, etc.). He's trying to track the performance of the stock market in each country - he wasn't claiming that stock performance is a 1:1 match for all important economic factors.
As for Iceland, I wouldn't use it as an example - the fact that the stock market has cratered is DIRECTLY related to the fact that the economy has cratered due to the complete collapse of their banking system.
@bilups: Great point that you've made on gasoline; inflation-adjusted gas prices actually dropped for a time over the last ten years. I was handed some PowerPoint slides to tidy up for an executive who had graphed gas prices in nominal terms, showing a handsome, continuous increase (based on annual data points) to support his sh*t-stirring. I didn't even bother to discuss it with him, because I knew that correcting the chart to employ the truth would have upset the flow of his argument. (This is not my first rodeo.)
repeating...What's the capital of Iceland? -- twenty bucks.
@B1663R: Unfortunately the Canadian dollar has only declined in the past three weeks alone, from 94 cents to 78 cents. I really hope it will stop falling, as the dollar directly impacts my purchases (comic books and video games).
Reykjavik. Woo to the hoo! Do I win some Nordic Exchange index funds? Can't cost more than $5 or so now.
Iceland will be a text book example of what *not* to do when everyone else is doing it.
OK , I get it. Iceland went from a mainly farming economy to a nationalized hedge fund invested mainly in US mortgage-backed securities. Yeah, it sucks to be them now. On behalf of all of Americans, I'm sorry.
But they took the risk, in exchange for a potential reward that was at the time paying far above the standard for fixed income investments. Boo hoo they lost. I work for a company that's lost a ton more than the entire country of Iceland. I await a pink slip every day. Meanwhile, my heart bleeds for them.
Battle Royal for the all new Third World Country status! Set the brackets people!
@mariospants: Correction. Our "deficit" is not what it being counted on the giant "debt clock" I assume you are talking about. That is our national debt, thank you very much!
Also, our national debt is still a fraction of our GDP compared to what it was in '29 so is unemployment and everything else so I wish people would quit comparing the two. They are not even close. This isn't even that bad, folks! Grow up!
Hope Eve-Online isn't cancelled.
@B1663R: I was in Canada last December for work and the Canadian dollar was stronger than the US dollar. The local Wal-Mart went so far as to put up a sign that said "A strong dollar means lower prices". Wow.
@Ecks: you know all summer when I was going to Canada from the states like it was my job and being killed on the exchange rate (I remember when it was like 60 cents canadian to the american dollar) I resolved myself not to think about it. And now that I've moved very far away from canada and my trips north will be rarer, of COURSE your currency is worth less. I may book a trip to Canada out of spite to spend my last Canadian dollars purchased at a rate of nearly 1 to 1. Bah!
I feel very sorry for my friend who just moved to Iceland and was planing on starting a clothing store.
fantastic... we rock so hard now that when we're boned, EVERYONE is boned!
yuck.