Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Hey, someone's got a financial crisis not caused by "subprime loans".
Oil bubble? What oil bubble?
Russia halts trading after one-day 17% share price fallIt couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of guys.
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.
Earlier, 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...
Chris Weafer, chief strategist at Uralsib investment bank: "We’re in completely uncharted territory where the prevailing emotion is of fear and numbness. No one knows where this could stop"...
...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...”
Andrei Sharonov, managing director of Troika Dialog, a Moscow investment bank, and a former deputy economic minister, said: “This is a vicious circle. 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.
