Week ended 4 October 2008 – A relief to the markets with the US bank deal

Posted by admin on 6 October, 2008 under Business advice, Weekly business news summary | Be the First to Comment

This weeks sees the banking problems spread to the German economy with Hypo Real Estate getting into difficulty, which is germany’s second largest mortgage lender!

We will have to wait to see how the newly agreed $700 Billion US bank resue plan will help world banks and their economies – world stock markets were lifted a bit on this news, but only time will tell as to whether this massive bail-out plan will work!

World governments are all playing their own part in trying to ease the crisis, as we see the Irish prime minister making a radical move to safeguard deposits in all Irish banks and the UK the Financial Services Authority has raised the guarantee on UK bank deposits from £35,000 to £50,000 per institution.

On the high streets we see that Marks & Spencer has seen its sales fall further as retails sales are hit by tough conditions on the high streets. So all in all yet another week of doom and gloom with Frances economy looking like going into to recession along with many other world economies.

End of the week saw:
Stock exchanges:
FTSE 100: 4,980
DOW: 10,325
S&P: 1,099
Nikkei: 10,938

Currencies
UK Sterling £ to US Dollar $ 1.76821
UK Sterling £ to Euro € 1.28061
UK Sterling £ to Aus $ 2.27453
US Dollar $ to Euro € 0.724245