Did something just happen?

[thewiseguy]

Nikkei has been free falling for the past half hour. It is now down more than 500 points within the past half hour.

I am wondering what could have just happened. The index was relatively stable for most of the trading session.

[grantcart]

1. they just heard about the PBS poll

and they are concerned about the latest Zogby numbers

[cliffordu]

3. BWAHAHAHa ah ahAHAHA hah Bwahaahahahah

Nice....

:rofl:

[Historic NY]

10. nah it was 3.3% chance McInsane has to win

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/

[billyoc]

12. ...

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[rcrush]

2. Its that damn Windows Vista

[Why Syzygy]

4. Anti-coherence

http://gcpdot.com/

[seemslikeadream]

5. Capital-Raising Reports

Mitsubishi UFJ, Banks Fall on Capital-Raising Reports (Update2)

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=aTqRJAIVx1l8&refer=japan


MUFG eyes 11 bln dollar capital rise:

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jqVH0WpD9Wzc2huFccn9GsmZMVxQ

Japan to raise capital injection fund to 110 bln dlrs: minister

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jnF9-jMalFxCODpdpSyU4ipvPeyQ

[seemslikeadream]

6. fears that lenders would need to raise capital as the value of their stockholdings continue to drop

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2008/10/27/17449/overnight-markets-turmoil/

[Lasher]

7. Asian stocks in general are down.

Maybe Nikkei held up for awhile today on hopes that Japan can insulate its economy somewhat from the global financial crisis.

Not a good sign for stocks in the US today.

[Just-plain-Kathy]

8. Maybe it's because we're now striking Syria and Pakistan...

http://news.yahoo.com/

Bush will start WWIII before he leaves office.

[charlie]

11. Has anyone gotten a statement from McCain yet?

I figure he wouldn't want to miss a chance to excoriate Bush for this, since he harrumphed and lectured Obama about Pakistan's sovereignty a couple of weeks ago.

[Just-plain-Kathy]

14. You got me thinking.... This is the second time this week I heard that Bush agreed....

...with something Obama wanted to to do; could it be *they're* trying to make it seem that Obama is more like Bush than McCain is?

[charlie]

18. I think

they're helping Johnny by reminding us we're "at war", it's a dangerous world, terrorists behind every tree, blah de blah. The usual crap. IF McCain wants to take the tack that Obama's promise to kill Bin Laden in a host country that can't or won't makes him kin to an out of control Republican Preznit, I'd love for him to do it.

[charlie]

9. Maybe because the yen is rocketing up against the dollar

Hurts their export sector.

I dunno. I never understood how a country's currency could be considered a haven when its market is tanking, so I couldn't say why. But it's happened before -- I was living over there the last time the yen took off while the Nikkei was still in its post-bubble doldrums.

[sharesunited]

19. Margin calls trigger an acute need for currency of the nation where your stockholdings reside.

[charlie]

22. I'm still not clear on how that makes yen more valuable

Is it because it dries up excess liquidity, making what remains worth more? And because Japan has no room left for rate cuts so there's little danger of them inflating their way out of their debts?

[sharesunited]

23. The Nikkei drops, triggering margin calls. Investors with stockholdings in Japan must

get their hands on yen immediately to meet their margin calls. Otherwise, their stockholdings are sold out from under them to meet those margin calls.

Same thing is happening with the USD.

[girl gone mad]

21. Both of those things are feeding on each other.

I have a friend who is an active trader on the Nikkei, but I haven't been able to text him tonight.

[louis c]

13. The numbers I see are flat

Link:
http://money.cnn.com/data/world_markets/index.html

[charlie]

15. 12:45pm

The numbers are old. It fell off a cliff just before 2:00pm and is down close 5% now. Yahoo's finace page is updated every few minutes:

http://finance.yahoo.com/

[louis c]

16. Thanks for the info (NT)

[louis c]

17. My link has caught up, too. I see the drop now.

[charlie]

20. Check out the currency link on the CNN page

The yen has appreciated nearly 10% against the dollar in under a week. Its trajectory is still upward today, gaining a full percent. For whatever reason, it seems to be the hot major currency of the moment.