Investment comment
October 2008
Economic and market background
Not since the 1930s has the world's financial landscape changed as dramatically or as rapidly as it did during the third quarter of 2008. The crisis in global credit markets, which began just over a year ago, developed rapidly in September from a crisis of liquidity into one of solvency, causing panic in financial markets (which aggravated in turn the forced deleveraging of financial companies) and engulfing some of the largest financial institutions in the world. In a less challenging setting, the precipitous decline of commodity prices (and, notwithstanding Russia's belligerence towards Georgia, a lower oil price in particular) might have been succor to investors, but events in the financial arena eclipsed all else.
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