Sphere: Related ContentBear rescue spooks markets
By Neil Dennis
ft.com
Equity markets and the dollar sold off sharply on Monday, as the rescue of stricken investment bank Bear Stearns sparked fears of further financial sector strife.
The dollar tumbled to new lows against most currencies as markets increasingly priced in the likelihood of a 100-basis-points cut in the main Fed funds rate when the US central bank meets on Tuesday.
Shares in US banks opened significantly lower after JP Morgan Chase emerged over the weekend as the buyer of rival Bear Stearns for $2 a share.
The move came as the Fed announced it was cutting the discount rate at which it lends to banks by 25 basis points to 3.25 per cent, and opening up its discount window to 90 days from 30 days.
By midday in New York, Bear Stearns shares were 87.9 per cent lower at $3.74 as the S&P 500 shed 2.1 per cent. Lehman Brothers tumbled 34 per cent, while Morgan Stanley lost 10.2 per cent and Citigroup fell 9.1 per cent.
In Europe banks were the heaviest falling stocks as investors worried about which financial institution would be the next to experience problems with creditors.
UBS, the Swiss bank, fell 13.9 per cent, while in the UK Royal Bank of Scotland fell 8.7 per cent, Barclays shed 9.4 per cent and HBOS tumbled 12.8 per cent.
An announcement by the Bank of England that it was to inject an extra £5bn into distressed money markets did nothing to restore confidence, and the FTSE 100 in London closed 3.9 per cent lower at 5,414.4.
In Europe, the FTSE Eurofirst 300 plunged 4.2 per cent to 1,202.54, while Germany’s Xetra Dax fell 4.2 per cent to 6,182.3, and in France the CAC 40 dropped 3.5 per cent to 4,431.04.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 Average fell 3.7 per cent to 11,787.51 as banks and carmakers led the decline. Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index lost 5.2 per cent and India’s Sensex index lost 5.1 per cent. (more…)
Why the rush to make Michael Jackson a “Christian”
On the days following the death of Michael Jackson, I read from two sources so-called accounts from Christians that Michael Jackson was in fact a Christian. Now I found the claim quite interesting because I know that MJ had also claimed to be a Muslim, Jehovah Witness and I believe that he also embraced Judaism to some extent. But how was it that all of a sudden folks were claiming that MJ was actually a Christian. Here was the first claim I came across. David Pack for purposedriven.com (The article was removed or moved to another link. But here is the ...
It begins here
Okay, all the hatin' over the BET Awards show is really getting silly. Don't like BET? Then work on changing the culture FIRST. If you can change the culture, you will decrease demand for what you feel misrepresents Black folks. Do it the other way around, and more "BETs" will pop up. Need an example? Some of y'all may remember back in the day when local churches would stage protests in front of local porn shops. Did they manage to get a few of them shut down? Sure did. But how did the porn industry respond to meet demand? They moved ...
Flake fest
I think many of us knew that it would not take long for folks to suddenly act as if they have been ardent Michael Jackson supporters for years. Jackson was hammered repeatedly by critics for allegedly being ashamed of being Black due to all the plastic surgery and the mysterious lightening of his skin. Black folks slammed him on this and White folks were given full and complete license to also question his racial identity and joke about it. Then I remember what Jamie Foxx said the other day at the BET Awards show: "Michael Jackson was a black ...
Rushmore Drive bites the dust
I think a lot of us saw that coming from a mile away. From AdAge.com RushmoreDrive.com, the first black search engine, recently shut down only a year after its launch. This raised the question about whether there is a market for a black version of Google. Rushmore Drive was the brainchild of Barry Diller's IAC, which just reported a "first-quarter net loss of $28.4 million compared to a profit of $52.8 million in the same quarter a year ago." Too bad. Rushmore's failure is not only another negative statistic from the fallout of the economic downturn, but also from questionable planning. (more...) Kevin Walker, ...
“perv dad for fun”
From townhall.com "Frank Lombard is the associate director of Duke’s Center for Health Policy. The university administrator was recently arrested by the FBI and charged with offering up his adopted 5-year-old son for sex. I tried to contact Frank Lombard over the weekend to probe his expertise regarding the health benefits of raping small children. So far, he’s declined to comment. University administrator Lombard is accused of logging on to a chat room online and describing himself as a “perv dad for fun.” The detective who wisely looked into the suspicious screen name says that Lombard admitted to molesting his own adopted ...
