Wall Street suffers worst January

Traders on Wall Street have endured a torrid start to 2009

Wall Street has suffered its worst January on record as a barrage of bad US economic data continues to shake investors' confidence.

The Dow Jones Index ended the month down 8.8% in what some analysts see as a bad omen for the year ahead.

The broader S&P 500 index fell by 8.6%, also a record fall for January.

The Dow fell 1.82% on the last trading day of the month after official figures showed that US GDP fell sharply in the final quarter of 2008.

World markets also suffered - the MSCI world index closed down 8.6% on the month.

GDP falls

US economic output fell by 3.8% in the last three months of the year, the biggest quarterly decline since 1982.

It was also the second quarterly decline in a row - the first time that has happened since 1991.

And this was just the latest in a long line of bad economic figures.

On Thursday, US Commerce Department figures showed that orders for long-lasting manufactured good from US factories fell for the fifth month in a row.

Figures released at the beginning of the month showed that more people lost their jobs - 2.6 million - in 2008 than in any year since World War II.

A number of the most recognised companies in the US have announced massive job cuts during January.

Aircraft manufacturer Boeing announced on Wednesday that it was cutting 10,000 jobs.

Earlier in the week, construction and mining equipment maker Caterpillar announced it would cut about 20,000 jobs , while carmaker General Motors said 2,000 of its workers would be laid off.

Earlier this month, Microsoft said it would cut more than 5,000 jobs.

Sales slump

Retail sales continue to slump as consumers tighten their belts while the US housing market shows no signs of recovery.

On Thursday, figures showed that sales of new homes in the US dropped by 14.7% in December.

They also showed that for 2008 as a whole, sales fell by 37.8% to 482,000 homes, the weakest results since 1982.

In 2007, 776,000 homes were sold.

Not even the inauguration of President Obama on 20 January led to a sustained rally on Wall Street.

However, the new administration hopes that its $819bn (£563bn) economic stimulus package, which passed through the House of Representatives on Thursday and goes to the Senate next week, will mark a turning point in the fight against the economic downturn.

Digged from BBC

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Need to pay a lot of attention to Wall Street.----------by Zhefeng

Small companies 'shedding staff'

Small and medium-sized manufacturing companies are shedding staff at the fastest rate since the early 1990s, according to new research from the CBI.

Rapid deterioration

"The jobs picture among smaller manufacturers has deteriorated markedly since last July in the face of rapidly declining demand for UK-made goods at home and abroad," said Russel Griggs, chairman of the CBI's Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) Council.

"Firms are steeling themselves for a very difficult few months with output and orders expected to fall at a record pace in the next quarter.

"As a result, job losses are expected to accelerate among SMEs," he added.

Digged from BBC

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As we all know that we are facing the extremely bad financial environment nowadays. This situation is not only appeared in UK. Apparently China is having the same challenge. Though I am not a economist and I didn't do any research about this situation. While I still learned something about the small companies 'shedding staff'. For instance, "only in 2008, in Donguan City(one of big cities in Guangzhou province, also one of biggest manufacturing cities in China) " said by my one of my relatives who is working in there as a worker, "has closed down more than 50,000 workshops" Well this is only in a city, if you take a look at other cities in China you will find this is a huge challenge for not only the Chinese government but all also most of Chinese people.——by Zhefeng

PM says 'no clear map' for crisis

"This is not like the 1930s. The world can come together," the prime minister said.

"This is the first financial crisis of the global age. And there is no clear map that has been set out from past experience to deal with it.——Mr Brown

"We're learning all the time about how to deal with what are real problems for which we have no historical analogies to fall back on, because when the 1930s problems hit them, they did not have the global financial markets that we have today."

Mr Brown said a "laissez faire" attitude was not permissible and added that "there is implicit protectionism I'm afraid in what is happening at the moment".

This is a global banking crisis and you've got to deal with it for what it is, a global banking crisis

digged from BBC