[FT]Panic grips credit markets

Panic grips credit markets
grips: 움켜쥐다
By Krishna Guha in Washington, Michael Mackenzie in New York and Gillian Tett in London

Published: September 17 2008 18:23 | Last updated: September 18 2008 00:01

The panic in world credit markets reached historic intensity on Wednesday, prompting a flight to safety of the kind not seen since the second world war.
intensity :맹렬함 prompting:촉진
안전자산 선호현상이 나타난다.

Barometers of financial stress hit record peaks across the world. Yields on short-term US Treasuries hit their lowest level since the London Blitz, while gold had its biggest one-day gain ever in dollar terms. Lending between banks, in effect, stopped.
채권과 금값이 올랐다. 은행간 거래는 끊어졌다.

Speculation mounted that the Federal Reserve, which refused to cut rates on Tuesday, could be forced into an embarrassing U-turn or might further expand its market liquidity operations.
투기때문에 유동성을 더욱 공급해야 할지 모른다.

The $85bn emergency Fed loan for the troubled insurance group AIG, announced on Tuesday night, failed to curb the surge in risk aversion. Instead, markets were hit by a fresh wave of anxiety.
curb:억제 surge:밀려오다 anxiety:걱정

One cause for fear came when shares in a supposedly safe money market mutual fund fell below par value – or “broke the buck” – owing to losses on debt in Lehman Brothers, which filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday. This raised the risk that retail investors in other such funds could panic and pull out their money.
supposedly:아마도
손실액을 추정하기 어렵기 때문에 시장의 불안은 커지고 있다.

All thought of profit was abandoned as traders piled in to the safety of short-term Treasuries, with the yield on three-month bills falling as low as 0.02 per cent – rates that characterised the “lost decade” in Japan. The last time US Treasuries were this low was January 1941.
abandoned:황폐한 piled in :우르르 몰려오다
채권을 사려는 사람이 많아지면서 채권 수익률은 잃어버린 십년의 일본 수준까지 떨어졌다.

Shares in the two largest independent US investment banks left standing – Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs – fell 24 per cent and 14 per cent, respectively, as the cost of insuring their debt soared, threatening their ability to finance themselves .
살아남은 투자은행인 골드만과 모건의 주가는 각각 14%, 24%씩 빠졌다.

Morgan Stanley was holding preliminary merger talks with Wachovia, a troubled regional lender, and could approach other banks and look at other options in the coming days, people familiar with the situation said. Washington Mutual, another regional lender, has hired Goldman Sachs to contact potential buyers.
모건과 골드만은 각각 와초비아, 와무와 합병논의를 하고 있다.

HBOS, a leading UK mortgage lender pressed into sales talks by the government after its share price halved this week, agreed to a £12bn takeover by Lloyds TSB.

A key measure of fear in the fixed-income markets - the so-called Ted spread, which tracks the difference between three-month Libor and Treasury bill rates - moved above 3 per cent, higher than the record close after the Black Monday stock market crash of 1987.
리보 3개월 물과 미국채간 이자율차는 3%로 벌어졌다.

US authorities fired back with the Treasury announcing it was borrowing $40bn to give to the Fed to use for its emergency lending – in essence removing balance sheet constraints on the size of this assistance.
constraints:압박

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced new curbs on short selling.

Some analysts have criticised US authorities for adopting an arbitrary approach to rescues - saving AIG, but not Lehman - that was impossible for investors to predict and therefore did not boost confidence.
한 분석가는 미국 정부가 리먼은 죽이고 에이아이지는 살렸기 때문에 정책의 일관성을 의심할 수 밖에 없으며 이에 따라 시장이 확신을 가질 수 없게 되었다고 말한다.

The S&P 500 fell 4.7 per cent, led by a 8.9 per cent slump in financials. Equity volatility was near its highest level since March. The dollar fell against other major currencies.

Gold benefited from safe-haven buying, with prices rising 11.2 per cent to a three-week high of $866.47 a troy ounce.

Andrew Brenner, co-head of structured products and emerging markets at MF Global, said: “It feels like no one wants to take anyone’s credit...it feels like we are on a precipice.”
precipice:절벽
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008


신용위기 때문에 시장은 혼란에 빠졌다. 주식 같은 신용자산은 가격이 떨어지고 금, 채권 같은 안전자산은 수요가 넘쳐 가격이 솟구치고 있다.