THE ONLOOKER

The “Black Monday” in 1987 was followed in quick succession by two more crises in US economy till the advent of new millennium. The Saving and Loan crises in 1989 and thereafter the Long Term Capital Bailout in 1998; were the two turmoil that rocked the US economy. In US, like banks, savings and loan institutions accept deposits from public and offered mortgage loans to them. They are in the business since 1800s and remained under strict regulation till 1970s. In late 70s, new competitors, Money Market Funds started offering higher interest rate than S&Ls. The S&Ls sought deregulations to offer higher interest rate and more loans from government; what they got. It was something like handing in babies with shot-guns. The 1980s real estate boom saw many S&Ls grew so fast as never before! Their speculative assets grew faster than ever. Loans granted against superficially priced properties brought many S&Ls prospects down, even to dooms! It was due to huge payment defaults...

After the Wall Street crash in October 1973 due to unprecedented surge in crude oil price; there was lull for little more than a decade. The Wall Street rocked again on October 19th, 1987,the Monday. The US stock market indices, the DOW Jones Industrial Average lost 508 points. That means on a single day the stocks lost 22.6% of their values! This day was also termed as another “ Black Monday ”. Two of the potential culprits behind this crash were identified. One was, as the gift technology; the program trading and other a new financial hedging method called portfolio insurance. Both of them together caused the sharp fall of stock prices for massive sell offs. Of course there other factors like US trade deficit, weakening of dollar and overvaluation of stock values played its roll with investor’s sentiments. But in a single day, a fall that sharp could never take place unless the traders used computers for stock trading. Program trading is that when a trader can book order to sell or b...

Readers, sorry for inconvenience! It is due to some technical draw back I needed to shift the article ' 1973 Oil Crisis' . please click HERE for " The Ramadan War and Oil crises" .

Many young women with bulging waist line get frustrated trying with diet and exercise. At last they give up and leave it in the hands of fate! Obviously, their tummies keep ballooning. So were their worries too. If you are one of them or just worried about the bulging belly, there is good a news for you. The editor of Prevention Magazine, after through research, developed a diet that helps you to control your bulging tummy and turn it to flat belly. There is no exercise, just a diet; called Many young women with bulging waist line get frustrated trying with diet and exercise. At last they give up and leave it in the hands of fate! Obviously, their tummies keep ballooning. So were their worries too. If you are one of them or just worried about the bulging belly, there is good a news for you. The editor of Prevention Magazine, after through research, developed a diet that helps you to control your bulging tummy and turn it to flat belly. There is no exercise, just a diet; called Flat Bel...

>A shanty town ship " Hooverville" A mother of seven, aged 32 years only, photo taken in 1930s Wall Street crash! Wall Street gone tumble tosser, consumers cut down their expenses pulling down the demands. Industries started layoffs, to cut down expenses. The demand further plunged due to escalating unemployment rate. So the Great Depression crept in. The debtors could not repay their loans, banks began to fail. The depositors lost money; there was no deposit insurance in 1930s, as of now. 744 banks failed in the first ten months of 1930 losing $140 billion. Can you imagine, before the decade was over around 9000 banks failed in America! Do you know what Hooverville, Hoover blanket, Hoover Flag, Hoover soup meant? In US during that turbulent time Herbert Hoover was the president. The battered people; who sold their houses and started living in shanties; created townships which were known as Hooverville. To brave the wintry cold they covered themselves with news papers, ...

The devastation of First World War and technological progression both together offered a great opportunity of investments and employments in 1920s. That ushered great optimism in the Wall Street as well. Most of the American participated in stock market speculations and investments. You could buy the stock at a fraction of their prices, called “buying on margin”, the rest borrowing from brokers. Obviously share prices sky rocketed. Again the old rule “what goes up must come down” worked. Unfortunately; what went up struggling for number of days; came down in three days! That was the crash. It was on October the 24th, 1929 famous as “Black Thursday”; a massive sell off took place. The volume of trading was more than triple. The price came tumbling down. This time again Richard Whtney of J.P. Morgan and company tried to rescue the market, he started buying the shares aggressively. The downfall halted for time being. The market looked up on 25th, the Friday. On 26th, the Saturday (then tr...

What goes up that comes down; this old adage is still valid. We all know that. But when it makes a free fall, then it crashes. This exactly happened in the all major stock markets all over the world, the Wall Street took lead. Thank god! History of Wall Street suggests what comes down crashing, stands up sooner or later. Sooner the better and worse the later; this is true with the recovery, as witnessed, no less than ten crashes, in the last century. Let us recapitulate what we have seen in the last century. Since it is going to be a long narrative, I shall write it in few installments. Hope you will hold your patients. The first financial crash Wall Street witnessed in last century was in 1907. The New Year saw Wall Street in very depressed condition. The stocks were traded at 25% lower prices. It was due to tight money supply condition. At that time Otto Heinze came with a get-rich-quick scheme. He was joined by his brother Augustus Heinze, who was a copper magnet. Finally the tri...

There has been a short break from blogging for me. The reason for this I have explained in my other blog BUGULE . In case you are interested you can have look there. What I gathered from this short break is the current hot selling topics in the web marketing while global recession is setting in. In US and other developing economies lot many people are considering going for insolvency for their unpaid loans. The avenues available for them better than bankruptcy is the point of hot discussions. Many individuals and agencies are entering into this business; with a license from the concerned authority they are acting as debt consultants. Even for the lenders they show the way; that where the recovery of their funds is remote possibility, there are alternatives available for them to get back some of their money at least. US housing scam deluged their own banking system, towing others too. The measures of bailing out the faltering banking and insurance majors, is appealingly temporary soluti...