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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: CalculatedRisk who wrote (147109)	9/16/2008 6:06:28 PM
From: Jim McMannis	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

Russia just said, what the heck...halt it after 17% off, we've had enough. ft.com Russia halts trading after 17% share price fall By Catherine Belton and Charles Clover in Moscow and Rachel Morarjee in London Published: September 16 2008 15:07 \| Last updated: September 16 2008 19:11 Russian shares suffered their steepest one-day fall in more than a decade on Tuesday, losing up to 20 per cent, as a sharp slide in oil prices and difficult money market conditions triggered a rush to sell. The heads of the Russian central bank, the finance ministry and the financial market regulator met on Tuesday night for an emergency discussion on ways to halt the crisis. EDITOR’S CHOICE Nerves jangle in emerging economies - Sep-16Emerging market stocks take a dive - Sep-15Pre-emerging economies grow increasingly attractive - Sep-07Emerging market IPOs decline - Sep-04The Short View: Emerging markets - Sep-03Insight: There is still strong allure in emerging market equities - Sep-03Earlier, trading had been suspended on both the Micex and RTS stock exchanges as investors ignored assurances by Russian officials and a cycle of distrust set in amid liquidity fears. Margin calls forced domestic traders to liquidate positions and brokers pulled credit lines. At least one Moscow bank failed to meet payments. The rouble-denominated Micex Index closed 17.75 per cent down, the sharpest one-day drop since the August 1998 financial crisis, while the dollar-denominated RTS index closed down 11.47 per cent, its lowest lvel since January 2006. Interbank money market rates climbed to 11 per cent, their highest since a mini-banking crisis in summer 2004. Chris Weafer, chief strategist at Uralsib investment bank: “We’re in completely uncharted territory where the prevailing emotion is of fear and numbnes. No one knows where this could stop”. Alexei Kudrin, finance minister, insisted that the financial system was not in a systemic crisis but the central bank injected a record $14.16bn in one-day funds into the money market. The finance ministry also placed an additional R150bn ($5.8bn) in one-month deposits into the banking system. Konstantin Korishchenko, central bank deputy, told Russian news agencies that the bank and the finance ministry could provide a total of $117.6bn in liquidity to the banking sector. But market players said banks were ceasing to lend to second and third-tier companies and brokers were pulling credit lines. KIT Finance, big Moscow investment house confirmed rumours that it had been unable to make payment on a series of short-term loans. It said: “In connection with the fact that a series of our clients did not meet their obligations to our bank, we have not met our obligations to our counterparties. “We recognise our responsibility to our counter-parties and to the market and we are working intensively to resolve the situation.” Andrei Sharonov, managing director of Troika Dialog, a Moscow investment bank, and a former deputy economic minister, said: “This is a vicious circle,” said , . “It is a situation of total mistrust. The liquidity crisis is being caused by a crisis of confidence in which people are frightened to borrow and frightened to lend.” Shares in Russia’s biggest state-controlled banks led the slide with Sberbank, the state-controlled savings bank, closing 21.72 per cent down and VTB losing 29.26 per cent. The bank was suffered on investor fears about its securities portfolio, which makes up about 10 per cent of its assets.

To: CalculatedRisk who wrote (147109)	9/17/2008 4:21:38 PM
From: GraceZ	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

re: Primary Reserve MMF, back when we had the BS debacle I wrote a post on here detailing the sheer amount of Bear Stearns paper these guys were holding at the time, it was in the billions and a huge percentage of their holdings. They lived through that thanks to the FED/JPM bailout and then turned around and ended up being left holding the LEH bag. They are certainly not the first MMF to have trouble during this crisis, but they are the first to break the buck. The other major MMFs that got into trouble this year were quietly bailed out by their well heeled parent firms with cash infusions to keep them from breaking the buck. Primary Reserve doesn't have a parent company, therefore they were forced to show the loss. This is the point where people learn the difference between cash and cashlike. Primary Reserve is the MMF used by my former broker, Ferris Baker Watts. My husband still has an IRA there. I have to feel for some poor sucker, fearing losses in the market, who went to cash in those accounts only to find out cash wasn't really cash but a MMF that lost value.