Wall Street goes halvsies…
The New York Times charts the dramatic declines in market capitalization of 29 selected financial firms in the period from October 9, 2007 (shown above) to September 12, 2008 (below).
In the intervening 339 days, the value of those firms has declined from $1.86 trillion to $0.98 trillion, for a staggering loss of $880 billion. ABC is saying there will be huge job lossses on Wall Street for 2008, on the order of 170,000 jobs.
…As for what happens next, there are no less than 3 individuals vying for the title of Dr. Doom. They are Henry Kaufman ex-Salomon Brothers, Nouriel Roubini prof at NYU and one Peter Schiff. All three claim to have predicted the current predicament, and attribute it to easy credit, speculative excess and securitization of illiquid assets. Their monicker accurately reflects their expectations for the near-future.
Schiff’s claim to fame includes his correct call re the real estate bubble at a meeting of the Western Regional Mortgage Bankers Association on Nov 13 2006 part 1/8…
…but enough of all this maudlin fascination with the past. We at G-M prefer to look to the future, and look forward to making a bundle, er participating, in the fabled/putative next bubble, thought by some to be alternative energy eg solar, geothermal, wind etc, possibly to peak in 2013…we’re saving our pennies. The fly-in-the-ointment of alternative energy, of course, is the on-going slump in the price of crude oil, but that can be fixed by some more wars, hurricanes and Hummers.
A Year of Heavy Losses – New York Times, September 15 2008
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It’s great to see the stcok market in so much better shape now. Reading this post brings back all the anxiety of a couple years ago.
I wonder if we’ll ever get back to an economy like we enjoyed in the eighties and nineties.