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Fallout: The Financial Crisis

Overseas markets catch U.S. cold

Jeremy Hobson Feb 11, 2009
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Fallout: The Financial Crisis

Overseas markets catch U.S. cold

Jeremy Hobson Feb 11, 2009
HTML EMBED:
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TEXT OF STORY

Steve Chiotakis: Overseas markets are hiccuping this morning as well. Asia closed lower for the most part. Hong Kong fell 2.5 percent, Japan’s Nikkei down just slightly and Europe’s trading lower as well. And as Marketplace’s Jeremy Hobson reports, that U.S. sneeze is giving the world a bit of a cold today.


Jeremy Hobson: The drops haven’t been that big. Hong Kong fell 2.5 percent, and that was the worst overseas. And really, how much attention can foreign investors pay to our bailout? They’ve got their own crises to deal with:

Howard Wheeldon: We have got our own banking crisis, but essentially there is a belief here that without the U.S. being seen to be pulling out of this crisis, Europe has absolutely no chance of following suit.

That’s Howard Wheeldon, a senior strategist at BGC Partners in London. He says the Geithner plan lacks the comprehensive approach that’s worked in financial crises of the past.

Wheeldon: The need for speed and overwhelming force of government action just isn’t there in this plan. In other words, it’s just not big enough, it’s not wide enough.

Of course, this crisis is far bigger than its predecessors. In an interview yesterday, President Obama said investors looking for an easy out won’t find one.

In New York, I’m Jeremy Hobson for Marketplace.

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