Bailout

Last fortnight, the US financial disaster- as expected-blew into a full-fledged global crisis. First stop: Nearly all of Western Europe. Just like the US legislation for the over $700-billion rescue package, governments and central banks across the Atlantic, too, launched into bailout mode. Next stop: Asia, with some real estate lenders in Japan getting wiped out; and Singapore's economy, which plunged into recession.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) revised upwards its projection of the losses of the US banking system to $1.4 trillion. At which point, the financial tornado hit the west coast of India. For a whole week, it had Indian stock, currency and money markets in high panic. The Sensex lost nearly 2,000 points in a week, overnight inter-bank lending rates shot up to 22 per cent (from single-digit rates), the rupee slumped to Rs 48.72 to a dollar and scared investors in debt schemes of mutual funds pressed the redemption trigger. Within days, money and confidence in the Indian economy vanished into thin air. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) stepped in swiftly with liquidity-releasing steps. Finance Minister P. Chidambaram proclaimed the Indian banks' strong credentials and low vulnerability of the system to the growing global financial mess. The Government cancelled its scheduled borrowing for Rs 10,000 crore from the money market. Chidambaram set up a group of who's who from the financial world to suggest, within a week, ways to ease the liquidity crunch. On October 13, Chidambaram guaranteed liquidity yet again before the opening bell at the stock markets.
Finally, sanity returned when the Asian stock markets posted relief rallies. But that may have just been temporary relief. The ghost of Wall Street is still out there. BT takes a look at the toll in India so far and what to expect next.
Worldwide woes
The financial crisis has spread way beyond its epicentre in the US and has engulfed most of Western Europe. Here's a country-by-country status and assessment.
UNITED KINGDOM
Has lined up a $850-billion rescue plan, May nationalise Royal Bank of Scotland
Will recapitalise banks by up to $88 billion. Abbey, Barclays, HSBC, Llyods, Standard Chartered, HBOS and Nationwide Building Society can draw from an aggregate of $44 billion to boost their Tier 1 capital
Bank of England will infuse liquidity of $351 billion through loans
The government will guarantee $439 billion worth of short-and-medium term debt
Britain has seized control of mortgage lender Bradford & Bingley
Earlier this year nationalised Northern Rock
Alarm: The total liabilities of Barclays of £1,300 billion (leverage ratio of over 60), surpass Britain's GDP
BELGIUM
The government took partial control of the struggling Fortis Bank
France, Belgium and Luxembourg stumped up $93 billion to recapitalise Dexia, a French-Belgian lender that ran up huge losses in its US operations
Alarm: Fortis Bank's liabilities are several times larger than the GDP of Belgium (leverage ratio of 33)
ICELAND
The government has nationalised three of Iceland's biggest banks
Accounts in these banks stand frozen
IRELAND
Has guaranteed all bank deposits
SPAIN
Will spend 50 billion euros ($68 billion) to buy bank assets, almost a third of the proposed 2009 central government budget
UNITED STATES
May pick up ownership in failing US banks (Morgan Stanley is reported to be one)
Fed ready to lend directly to stressed companies
GERMANY
Has guaranteed all bank deposits
Has organised a credit lifeline of euros 35 billion for blue-chip commercial real estate lender Hypo Real Estate Holding
Alarm: The total liabilities of Deutsche Bank (leveraging ratio of over 50) amount to 2,000-billion euro, which is more than 80 per cent of the GDP of Germany
JAPAN
Yamato Life Insurance failed with $2.7 billion in debt
The government may revive a bank-rescue law of the 1990s banking crisis
Tokyo may set up a $100-billion fund to prop up smaller lenders
Alarm: Real estate companies are folding up, forcing regional banks to raise reserves against bad loans
SINGAPORE
Eased monetary policy for the first time since 2003 after sinking into its first recession in six years, hit by the meltdown in financial markets
The government revised its 2008 growth forecast to around 3 per cent from an earlier estimate of 4 to 5
ITALY
UniCredit Bank has announced plans to raise its capital ratio by spinning of property assets

BSE, India

Wednesday, March 29, 2006 was a momentous day on Dalal Street. In the course of trading on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), the benchmark index, the Sensex, for the first time ever, overtook its counterpart on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average. When the 30-share Indian index hit 11,157, it went past the 11,154 that the Dow had closed at the previous day. The two indices are strictly not comparable—for instance, the value of the stocks that make up the Dow is $2.68 trillion (129 lakh crore), against $325 billion (Rs 15.6 lakh crore) for the 30-Sensex stocks. But the Sensex going one up on the Dow was a major shot in the arm of traders who thrive on sentiment, and little else. Perhaps it was also another sign of the beginning of a shift in economic power—the Sensex, after all, was offering annual returns of around 75 per cent; the Dow for its part was inching ahead in single digits.