(1) U.S. Treasury sells $40 Billion worth of debt to the Fed.
(2) Wachovia might be buying Morgan Stanley (that leaves only JP Morgan left standing of the 5 Big investment banks, though its shares also plummeted today).
(3) Washington Mutual (the biggest savings and loan bank in the US) puts itself up for auction.
In other news, this also happened:
(1) Russia halted all trading today as markets everywhere plunged
(2) Gold jumped up $70/oz. overnight, the biggest single day jump in well over 50 years
(3) Oil and commodities are finally back up again, returning us to a familiar picture
(4) USD is down slightly from the Canadian dollar
(5) AIG (the world’s largest insurance company!) bailout did almost nothing to ease market panic
(6) Yields on one-month US Treasuries actually dipped below zero (this means people are fleeing to safe investment havens)
(7) The very first US money market fund – Reserve Primary – freezes all redemptions because of exposure to Lehman (you thought your money market fund was liquid? Think again….)
What to do? My own thoughts echoed those of Stephen Jarislowsky as he reported today on BNN:
(1) You can buy physical gold
(2) You can stay in treasuries and government bonds (causing the yields on them to drop, though…)
(3) You can feel safe with consumer stocks such as Proctor & Gamble and Colgate, or Shoppers Drug Mart in Canada.
Myself, though I am looking at Shoppers Drug Mart and JNJ, I will probably move on the fire sale and grab up some TD Bank stock or some Husky Energy (a company with no debt on its balance sheets). I’m also looking at another of the oil income funds, now that they’re incredibly cheap. I guess I’m not as afraid as the news media seems to be. But I certainly won’t be anywhere near US financials.
Related Posts - Peter Schiff on the Rally and Why You Still Need to Buy Gold
- Investing in Canada's Real Estate Market
- China's Biggest One-Day Loss of the Year
- Now's a Good Time To Get Out of the US Dollar
- Second Half of the Year: Portfolio CheckUps, The Congressional Effect and Markets Going Forward
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