On FT Alphaville this morning,
- Crunch, crunch, crunch. Northern Rock shed a further third of its value on Monday morning, while queues outside its branches continued to grow.
- The need for a quick sale has prompted the Bank of England to modify its position on guarantees. It’s now apparently willing to be a little more flexible.
- Lina Saigol is wondering if there isn’t a more creative solution to the problem of who might buy the Wreck
- While CLSA’s Chris Wood is feeling like a schmuck. Merv has betrayed him.
- Alan Greenspan has embarked on a bout of hyperactive book promotion – and his prognosis for the US is glum; to blame are the communists and the Republicans; and the UK is in for a caning.
- The US was selling; and we were buying. How much US MBS did UK investors gobble up?
- And the Economist Intelligence Unit thinks there a one-in-three chance that we’re headed for the rocks.
- And to navigate these difficult times – the FT Alphaville Guide to Crunch Week. Don’t leave home without it.
On FT.com this morning,
- No deliverance for Stork – Candover has withdrawn its bid for the Dutch conglomerate after the largest shareholders, Iceland’s LME, declined to back the deal.
- A bad day for Goliath as the EU upheld the antitrust ruling against Microsoft, in the latest blow to the software giant in its nine-year battle with regulators.
- Terry Smith is “peculiarly” optimistic. The Collins Stewart chairman thinks equity markets stand to gain in the debt market turmoil.
- But Mitchells & Butlers is feeling the squeeze. The problems in the credit markets has sharply cut the value of interest rate and inflation hedges M&B took out when it was planning a £4.5bn property joint venture.
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