The Dow Jones Industrial Average had, during the last trading day of February, a minimumvalue below 700 points. The close was above 7000.
We are waiting for the next milestones: close below 7000, minimum reaching 6000, minimum reaching 5000 and so on…
During the current crisis, many prognoses were made. Some were optimistic, some were pessimistic. They varied from a short duration crisis to the end of the world. 
Well, here is my “original” apocalyptic prognosis:
1. The crisis will last at least until 2020.
2. During the crisis all major currencies will suffer hyperinflation; this will eventually lead to the disappearance of the curent currency and the return to the gold standard.
3. World War III will take place during the crisis; it will be caused by the food crisis; nuclear weapons will be used during this war.
4. The World population will be less than one billion after the crisis.
5. One of the countries that will recover first will be France; but, France will emerge from the crisis as a monarchy.
6. France example will be followed by many countries and monarchies will be restored throughout Europe (one of the first countries to restore the monarchy will be Serbia).
7. The United States of America will split into several independent states.
8. Several countries will leave the European Union.
9. The Pope (Pius XIII) will flee Vatican City.
10. Some of the former members of the Soviet Union will decide to join Russia in a new federation.
Would you like more?
The International Monetary Fund revised its prognosis for the world economy growth from 0.5% to 0%. Therefore, now they expect the economy to be stagnant in 2009. Well, I expect it to shrink a little and I think they will, at some moment, revise the prognosis again.
Moreover, they expect the economy of the developed countries to shrink by 2% and many countries will need help provided by IMF in order to pass this difficult period.
But, “someone important” said a short time ago that IMF no longer has enough money. In this case, what is the purpose of announcing something like we cannot help, but many need our help? Something like help us to help others?
The second largest economy in the world shrank 3.3% in the last quarter, the annually contraction rate being 12.7%. Most prognosis did not indicate such a deep contraction.
If this contraction continues, Japan will soon lose its status of world’s second largest economy.
But, the Nikkei index only fell 0.4%. This might only mean that a deeper fall will soon follow or that it starts recovering, but was pushed back by the announcement.
Microsoft decided it would be better for their business to open a chain of retail stores. When many companies close their stores, Microsoft does just the opposite.
Is this because they want to show that they are not affected by the crisis or is it because Apple did this for a while and obtained quite a nice profit from selling products in their own stores?
Swiss bank UBS reported a 13 billion euro (19.7 billion CHF) loss for 2008, announced that 15000 people will be fired, but decided that the employees will receive bonuses worth more than one billion euro (2.2 billion CHF). Again, something does not seem right 