The last 4 hours were absolutely crazy! There was near pandemonium and sheer panic in the world’s financial markets, with volatility jumping off the scale. Thankfully it seems that things have settled down a bit as traders pick themselves off the floor and start contemplating what could possibly happen next. During this whole roller coaster ride the major financial markets made the following moves:
Dow went from down 221 to down 581 points
Nasdaq went from down 90 to down 152 points
S & P went from down 42 to down 82 point
Oil went from down $7.55 to down $10.48
The EUR/USD (which is the currency pair I most often trade) seems to have cooled off a bit after the initial 192+ pip spike. You’d expect a strong and sustained uptrend in the EURO, but now that we’ve heard news of major bank failures and government intervention coming out of Europe as well I get the feeling that traders are lost like deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck. Which way to turn, where to park my money, is what they’re thinking at this very momen, and so far it shows. Gold has skyrocketed yet again. I just quickly jumped on the BullionVault website and noticed that it’s up at $911/oz and rising still. In such troubled and uncertain times investors are flocking to safe assets such as t-bills, gold, silver, and other precious metals.
The next few days should be interesting indeed. Is the worst over yet? Who knows! I do get the impression that the magnitude of what just happened hasn’t quite sunk in the minds of traders and investors.
Ok, I’m out for now. I’ll keep you all posted on the latest.
Cheers,
Alan