Press Review

"The fear that Europe and Asia will be infected by the US recession has sent the stock market plummeting," wrote Germany's financial daily Handelsblatt from Düsseldorf. "But panic is a bad advisor. No investor can win by fleeing the market. [...] On the contrary, fear offers opportunities for hefty market returns in the next few months.

"In Germany, hope lies in private consumption, considering the recent recovery of the job market," continued the paper. "Germans need a long time to bring themselves to purchase a car, furniture or other large items. But as soon as they've reached their decision, they bring in their high purchase power. That helps industry and the stock market. We will see considerably better days on the markets in the next few months."

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung commented from Germany's financial capital on the Main River that "there's no reason for panic at the moment," adding that there is "unfortunately also no reason for confidence."

"The severe setback in the German stock market destroyed the hope that has been fostered over the last few months that the German exchange could be uncoupled from international developments on the financial markets and that domestic stocks were more secure than American or European stocks.

"The possibility can't be excluded that the situation in the industrial nations will become noticeably worse," the paper wrote. "There are many indications that the tendencies on the international stock markets will continue to be driven by developments in the United States."

Paris' Liberation, on the other hand, found fault with politics and with the markets themselves. It wrote Tuesday that the financial markets, "heated by their ultraliberal dogmas, have rejected every attempt at regulation. They have asserted that the divine market would find the remedy for its imbalance on its own. But the only remedy that has resulted -- as in all crises caused by speculation -- is a crash.

"The whole thing would be tolerable if it just affected the irrational world of financial markets, which are getting a harsh blow from tumbling prices and the loss of capital," the French paper opined. "That's how it goes in a world of crazy money, in which politics has abdicated and left it to the economy."

Writing from London, the Financial Times said "data this year have confirmed trends that had looked worrying for months, such as the fallout from the US housing slump and the crisis in the credit markets" but that "it has brought no true shocks. Equity markets' success in avoiding a sell-off for so long is more surprising than their recent and sudden capitulation.

"Big sell-offs are usually followed by a bounce," continued the paper. "But popular measures of sentiment had already turned so bearish by the end of last week that they signaled an imminent bounce. But that has not happened. (…) A bounce is likely before long. But it will be a bounce within a bear market."