The end's not in sight - so stay sceptical

Another bloodbath reduced most equity indices to new lows recently. But there is no good news anywhere, and recovering from the burst debt bubble is likely to take years.

"It's like an unending nightmare," says Kent Engelke of Capital Securities Management. Another Monday bloodbath reduced most equity indices to new credit-crisis lows this week. The Dow Jones fell below 7,000 for the first time since 1997; the S&P 500 hit a new 12-year low; the pan-European DJ Stoxx 600 fell to a 13-year low and the FTSE 100 slid to 3,500- a level not seen since the start of the Iraq war six years ago.

"Hardly a day passes that we're not doused with dispiriting news" on the economy, says Alan Abelson in Barron's. In America, sales of new houses have hit another record low and the annualised slide in fourth-quarter GDP was revised up to 6.2%, the worst in 26 years. New claims for unemployment benefit have jumped to a 27-year high.

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