Opening Bell Rings Out Warnings

The Opening Bell Rings Warnings!

Today when the opening bell rang in Asia, the underlying tone was sell, sold, sell more. After Asia, it was Europe and then it ended up to be the worst day on Wall Street since 200 in which the Dow Jones Industrial and the S&P 500 Indexes fell 2.4 and 2.3 percent respectively. It seems that the US slump in the credit and housing markets have become contagious.

The Wallstreet Jounal, posted on its front page today, a story analyzing the regulatory climate whereby the federal and state governments are becoming a hands on faction to deal with plunging mortgages, failing companies and out of sight energy prices reeking havoc on the US economy and now reeking havoc in the UK. In this article, today's WJ reports the move in the US economy for tighter regulation.

At the beginning of the day, papers around the world provided insight as to why a cloud is hanging over the market. The Financial Times reports a new Citigroup statement suggesting that the UK is heading into a recession. In the US, WaMu fell 23.4 percent during trading yesterday and recovered to end down 13.3 percent then the previous day. After Barclays (UK second largest bank) and HBOS (Halifax Bank of Scotland 5^th largest) were denied a 5.3 billion capitalization by the Bank of England this week, The Daily Telegraph reports that JP Morgan is considering a move to break up HBOS to sort out any potential successful survival. The Financial Times is also quoted stating that UK investors are quietly pulling out their funds on the whisper of a recession.

The Financial Times also reports Bank United Financial Corp as a Florida failing institution, but not without hope for at least two potential buyers.

To add prominence to the brew, CNN Money provided information that New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo filed a multi-billion-dollar civil suit against UBS charging UBS falsely marketed "auction-rate securities as safe, cash-equivalent investments at a time when the market for these securities was under severe strain."