Shares

As we have seen, the issues this week for investors will be the Reserve Bank, interest rates, employment in Australia, shares, banks generally, credit freeze, earnings in the US, interest rates in Britain and Japan and confidence generally.

A rough week for everyone, made rougher by some dopey politicians in the US.

US Congressional leaders and the Bush administration have reached a tentative deal on a bailout of imperiled financial markets that could cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of US dollars.

The last week or so has seen an extraordinary set of events which saw shares first plunge following the failure of Lehman Brothers and the “rescue” of AIG only to surge on the back of plans by the US Government to buy bad and illiquid debt from financial companies along with bans on short selling.

There are some very nervous bankers and others in the financial world awaiting the approval of the $US700 billion bailout from the US Congress and Government.

The Reserve Bank has moved to try and solve a shortage of US dollars in the Asian area by joining a swap arrangement involving the US Federal Reserve.

The Federal Government had revealed its preferred approach to controlling the shorting of shares and other securities by not banning it but by substantially increasing the disclosure and reporting of the process.