<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR>Ukraine agrees giant IMF loan <!--10 min-->
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"-->PARIS - THE IMF announced a US$16.5 billion (S$24.9 billion) loan for Ukraine on Sunday as the effects of the financial crisis ripple around the globe, raising concern of a world recession.
After stock markets plunged last week, investors eyed the week ahead with the release of US economic figures and results from major companies that could compound fears on panic-stricken trading floors.
The US Federal Reserve is also expected to cut interest rates on Wednesday from the current level of 1.5 per cent.
French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde warned on Sunday that global economic growth would be 'considerably reduced' in 2009 and that the length and depth of the international financial crisis would be hard to predict.
'One must be very, very careful about predictions and the length of time of strong slowdown of the global economy. It can last part of the year, all year, and it can last longer,' she told Europe 1 radio.
Battered by the crisis, Ukraine became the latest country to need assistance from the International Monetary Fund, which announced on Sunday a US$16.5 billion loan to help the country 'maintain confidence and economic and financial stability'.
The announcement came two days after Iceland asked the IMF to help it overcome a crippling banking crisis with a loan of two billion US dollars.
Belarus and Pakistan have also appealed for assistance from the IMF.
As major stock markets prepared to open, investors nervously awaited for the publication on Thursday of figures on US gross domestic product for the third quarter, which are expected to show a decline.
That will follow a number of indicators on both sides of the Atlantic and a flood of results and outlooks from US, European and Japanese companies which are unlikely to give many grounds for optimism.
'If the fall in markets has its origins in the fear of an international recession, then the coming week will be very bad,' analyst Carl Weinberg, of High Frequency Economics, said in New York.
'The economic calendar is full of indicators that will be uniformly atrocious.'
In New York. ExxonMobil, the Dow Jones' biggest company by capitalisation, Kraft Foods and Procter and Gamble will be reporting, while in London oil giants PP and Shell will be doing the same.
In Frankfurt market-watchers will be scanning reports from Lufthansa, Bayer, Deutsche Bank and Volkswagen.
In Paris Alcatel-Lucent, France Telecom, Michelin, L'Oreal and Pernod Ricard will be under scrutiny.
Japan has already kicked off with a profits warning from Sony and other results will be published on Monday.
'Total panic'
'Total panic' is driving markets, said New York analyst Gina Martin of Wachovia Securities on Friday, as exchanges in New York, Tokyo, London and Paris plunged to early 2003 levels after four disastrous weeks.
The Japanese government has said it is ready to inject up to 110 billion US dollars into the nation's banking system, five times the amount previously mooted.
But shaken market traders, who have so far taken little notice of massive intervention plans by central markets and aid to banking sectors in the United States and Europe, may brush such moves aside.
Nor is it certain that Saturday's pledge by world leaders to overhaul the global financial system during an Asia-Europe meeting in Beijing will have much effect.
Hedge funds are still driving markets down as they unload shares to acquire liquidity to pay off debt, analysts say.
This scorched earth strategy has seen hedge funds drop more than 10 per cent, losing 210 billion US dollars in the third quarter on a worldwide share portfolio put at 1.72 trillion US dollars.
Gulf states were the only markets open on Sunday.
In Kuwait, traders, who deserted the stock market on Thursday, the business week's final day, left the trading chamber again after the index dived more than 300 points a few minutes after the opening. The Saudi stock market, the largest Arab bourse, closed down 1.66 per cent, while the Dubai Financial Market Index closed down 4.75 per cent and the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange dived four per cent. -- AFP
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"-->PARIS - THE IMF announced a US$16.5 billion (S$24.9 billion) loan for Ukraine on Sunday as the effects of the financial crisis ripple around the globe, raising concern of a world recession.
After stock markets plunged last week, investors eyed the week ahead with the release of US economic figures and results from major companies that could compound fears on panic-stricken trading floors.
The US Federal Reserve is also expected to cut interest rates on Wednesday from the current level of 1.5 per cent.
French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde warned on Sunday that global economic growth would be 'considerably reduced' in 2009 and that the length and depth of the international financial crisis would be hard to predict.
'One must be very, very careful about predictions and the length of time of strong slowdown of the global economy. It can last part of the year, all year, and it can last longer,' she told Europe 1 radio.
Battered by the crisis, Ukraine became the latest country to need assistance from the International Monetary Fund, which announced on Sunday a US$16.5 billion loan to help the country 'maintain confidence and economic and financial stability'.
The announcement came two days after Iceland asked the IMF to help it overcome a crippling banking crisis with a loan of two billion US dollars.
Belarus and Pakistan have also appealed for assistance from the IMF.
As major stock markets prepared to open, investors nervously awaited for the publication on Thursday of figures on US gross domestic product for the third quarter, which are expected to show a decline.
That will follow a number of indicators on both sides of the Atlantic and a flood of results and outlooks from US, European and Japanese companies which are unlikely to give many grounds for optimism.
'If the fall in markets has its origins in the fear of an international recession, then the coming week will be very bad,' analyst Carl Weinberg, of High Frequency Economics, said in New York.
'The economic calendar is full of indicators that will be uniformly atrocious.'
In New York. ExxonMobil, the Dow Jones' biggest company by capitalisation, Kraft Foods and Procter and Gamble will be reporting, while in London oil giants PP and Shell will be doing the same.
In Frankfurt market-watchers will be scanning reports from Lufthansa, Bayer, Deutsche Bank and Volkswagen.
In Paris Alcatel-Lucent, France Telecom, Michelin, L'Oreal and Pernod Ricard will be under scrutiny.
Japan has already kicked off with a profits warning from Sony and other results will be published on Monday.
'Total panic'
'Total panic' is driving markets, said New York analyst Gina Martin of Wachovia Securities on Friday, as exchanges in New York, Tokyo, London and Paris plunged to early 2003 levels after four disastrous weeks.
The Japanese government has said it is ready to inject up to 110 billion US dollars into the nation's banking system, five times the amount previously mooted.
But shaken market traders, who have so far taken little notice of massive intervention plans by central markets and aid to banking sectors in the United States and Europe, may brush such moves aside.
Nor is it certain that Saturday's pledge by world leaders to overhaul the global financial system during an Asia-Europe meeting in Beijing will have much effect.
Hedge funds are still driving markets down as they unload shares to acquire liquidity to pay off debt, analysts say.
This scorched earth strategy has seen hedge funds drop more than 10 per cent, losing 210 billion US dollars in the third quarter on a worldwide share portfolio put at 1.72 trillion US dollars.
Gulf states were the only markets open on Sunday.
In Kuwait, traders, who deserted the stock market on Thursday, the business week's final day, left the trading chamber again after the index dived more than 300 points a few minutes after the opening. The Saudi stock market, the largest Arab bourse, closed down 1.66 per cent, while the Dubai Financial Market Index closed down 4.75 per cent and the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange dived four per cent. -- AFP
