Wednesday, October 8, 2008

World Wide Interest Rate Cut Announced Today: Stocks Not Impressed

All indices have been bouncing around this morning in extraordinarily volatile action. The indices are currently down about 2%.

Oct. 8 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve, European Central Bank and four other central banks lowered interest rates in an unprecedented coordinated effort to ease the economic effects of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

The Fed, ECB, Bank of England, Bank of Canada and Sweden's Riksbank each cut their benchmark rates by half a percentage point. The Bank of Japan, which didn't participate in the move, said it supported the action. Switzerland also took part. Separately, China's central bank lowered its key one-year lending rate by 0.27 percentage point.

``We are now looking at the first page of the global- depression playbook,'' said Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics in Valhalla, New York. ``The only solution is to cut rates as close to zero as you dare,'' pump money into the banking system ``hand over fist'' and increase government spending, he said.

continued at:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aKj1Uvn3ofpo&refer=home

No comments: