As the global credit crisis deepens and touches every corner of the markets and exchange traded funds (ETFs), the pressure is on the world’s leading economies to stage a major confrontation.
This morning, President Bush spoke and sought to reassure Americans and the markets, promising to solve the crisis. He noted a number of meetings will be taking place this weekend to find solutions, report Graham Bowley and David Jolly for the New York Times.
G7 finance ministers and central bankers gathered at a meeting a week ahead of schedule in search of answers, report James Mackenzie and Daniel Trotta for Reuters. Major indexes in industrialized and emerging markets alike are falling sharply. Exchanges in Iceland, Russia, Indonesia and Romania have closed because of share price falls.
Japan is getting ready to propose to the world’s leading industrialized nations that a joint fund be established for emergency loans, says Yuri Kageyama for the Associated Press. No details have been given. But Japan had its own credit crisis in the 1990s tha might offer lessons for the other G7 nations. Japan injected public money into banks in order to boost their capital.
iShares MSCI EAFE Index (EFA) is down 43.9% year-to-date. In the last two weeks, it’s lost 27.1%.
China and Middle Eastern nations would be asked to contribute to the fund, as well, in order to prevent the further spread of the crisis.
Europe is feeling the sting of the crisis, too, as the Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index was driven to its worst week on record. Meanwhile, the 27-member European Union is trying to find a solution to the crisis while other individual European nations are moving on their own to strengthen their banking systems, reports Steve Scherer for Bloomberg.
EU finance ministers rejected the idea of a region-wide bailout fund, and it’s finding itself stymied by a requirement that major decisions be unanimous. There is also no central financial regulator.
DJ Euro STOXX 50 (FEZ) is down 47.2% year-to-date, and has lost 27.6% in the last two weeks.