World markets sell off - French to blame
January 21, 2008
– Comments (6)
Even if you checked the Asian markets before going to sleep last night, the news from Europe and Asia this morning seem pretty alarming. And because the US market is closed today, the European and Asian markets have one more session for us to watch what happens. According to a Marketwatch article, it's all the fault of the French. A friend of mine on the boards predicted more panic and more euphoria (rinse/repeat). I'm sure that's true. This morning? Here's our dose of panic.
I've excerpted a key bit, but the full story is here.
Understandably, the story was slow to get around. But sitting in paragraph nine, there were comments that amount to a profit warning for banks in France as well as those around the world.
"I'm reasonably confident that French banks will weather this turmoil without major trouble even though they are clearly, like all banks, in the world still in the process of marking down assets," said Christian Noyer, governor of the Bank of France and a member of the European Central Bank's governing council, Noyer's comments about "marking down assets" were enough to hit banks like Societe Generale , which saw drops of around 8% on Friday and lost another 7% on Monday.
The comments from Noyer had a particular impact because the first version of the story - which no longer appear in the online edition -- said he was assessing balance sheets of SocGen and BNP Paribas
At least our markets aren't open today. Let's hope the next cycle of euphoria kicks in before this next round of panic hits us.
RSS Headlines
Fool UK