Financial markets really hate uncertainty, don't they?

[randomness]

"That stampede you're hearing? It's folks running for the exits."

The biggest problem right now is that no one has any clue who all are holding the bag, or even how big the damn bag is. So while it doesn't hurt that the Fed and the ECB are opening the credit windows and throwing money at the banks, that doesn't make any of the banks less fearful and suspicious of each other.

And fear and suspicion? Bad for markets, just like they're bad for any other relationships.

Comments

[tla]

I don't know if you've ever been to the Motley Fool's website, but I find that it is full of sensible people. In particular, they have a "stock investing basics" collection of pages here, which is very useful if you don't know how to do a valuation.

My plan is to pick up companies I already believe in, either because I've worked there and know they have good people (this includes GS; I'm delighted at its plunge over the last week, because I believe that they will still find a way to do well over the next couple of years) or because I've been following their stories for a while.