Global Financial Crisis in October 2008 - Week of October 19

Week of October 19

Following a conference at Camp David over the weekend of October 18 and 19th attended by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, President George W. Bush announced on Wednesday, October 22 that he would host an international conference of financial leaders on November 15 in Washington, D.C. Participants would be drawn from both the developed world and the developing world, including participants from the G20 industrial nations such as India, Brazil and China.

On Sunday, October 19 the government of the Netherlands bailed out ING, the Dutch bank, with a €10 billion capital rescue plan. On Monday the government of Belgium rescued the insurance company Ethias with a €1.5 billion capital injection. In Germany BayernLB has decided to apply for funds from the German €500 billion rescue program. Sweden announced formation of a 1.5 trillion kronor fund to support inter-bank lending and a 15 billion kronor capital injection plan. Swedish banks were reported to be increasingly affected by the financial crisis. An IMF rescue plan for Iceland was reported to be near finalization while Ukraine was reported to be in discussions with the IMF. Iceland was reported to have also received assistance from Denmark and Norway while Britain has offered a loan to support compensation of British depositors in failed Icelandic bank Landsbanki. On Monday France announced a €10.5 billion rescue plan for six of its largest banks, including Crédit Agricole, BNP and Société Générale.

Despite some improvement in the availability of credit, stock markets and weak currencies such as the British pound and the euro continued to decline worldwide during the week of October 19. Markets across Asia suffered particularly heavy losses while European markets experienced substantial losses too, but to a lesser extent compared to those in Asia. The Dow Industrials Index, on the other hand, experienced a week of extreme volatility with violent swings both upwards and downwards, eventually ending lower. The yen and the dollar showed particular strength with the yen rising with respect to the dollar. This "flight to quality" had baleful effects on the economies of all nations including the United States and Japan. On Wednesday, Pakistan joined Iceland, Hungary, Serbia and Ukraine and requested aid from the International Monetary Fund in dealing with severe balance of payments difficulties. Hungary, Russia, Ukraine, Pakistan, Turkey, South Africa, Argentina, Iceland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Bulgaria were all experiencing financial difficulties with others threatened. These countries did not hold securities based on subprime mortgages, but were affected by inability to borrow money, the credit crisis. Plans are under discussion to increase credit available to the IMF, perhaps to a trillion dollars.

On Friday, October 24, stock markets plummeted worldwide amidst growing fears among investors that a deep global recession is imminent if not already settled in. The panic was partly fueled by remarks made by Alan Greenspan that the crisis is "a once-in-a-century credit tsunami" and by comments made by Gordon Brown during a speech, admitting essentially that Great Britain is already in recession mode. Following the trend, the US stock markets also fell sharply on opening and ended with the Dow Industrial Index down 312 points. Friday and Saturday (October 24 and 25) the 7th Asia-Europe Meeting was held in Beijing with the European Union meeting Asian states in an attempt to discuss a common approach ahead of the Emergency International Meeting that is scheduled to take place in Washington on November 15. No specific recommendations to solve the crisis were developed.