Q4 GDP -1.8%

[DEP]

Q4 GDP -1.8%.

[#2]

Worse than expected, emergency MPC meeting? 100 basis?

[DEP]

Market was expecting -1.2%, yes -1.8% it much worse. I think we will have a 1% cut by Friday. We could be in a recession of note by the end of Q1 2009.

[#4]

4get consecutive quarters...we already in recession. Question is now depression and me thinks our brilliant std 2 educated grab all u can politicians are gonna take us there much sooner than expected.

[#5]

2 % ending in a depression

[DEP]

Where is Trevor Manuel: "What recession?" remarkets? We are in a recession!

[#7]

for once we agree...Malema and his intellectually challenged cohorts will shoot their mouths off in a populist Toy Toying frenzy and a soundbite will become fixed in the minds of the international community at some point....of this is I very sure....

[#8]

I've been dreading this day for years!

[topgun]

And Tito's huge overpaid and overfed economics team at the SARB could not foresee this at the time of the Dec MPC meeting...no, let's rather wait for the Jan CPIX figures which everbody knew were going to be much lower based on the reduced fuel price and the re-weighting. Why should interest rates be lowered now, we are still outside the target band? Shouldn't we rather wait for confirmation? Or will growth concerns now supercede inflationary worries - with multiple BEE deals about to collapse and various manufacturing industries about to approach the Treasury cap in hand? Meanwhile, clever Trevor (SA's best finance minister ever!) is still clinging to the misconception that SA will post positive GDP growth for 2009, notwithstanding the country's commodity dependency and the global economic meltdown - he too might soon require some botox treatment, once he realises that the deficit projection is way too optimistic. One can only smile at all the chickens that are simultaneously coming home...the collective genius is about to be tested...

[SimonPB]

oh no .. it's the end of the world .. spose that means everybody is short ? yes ?

[#11]

for some reason I am long....

[SimonPB]

I bin short for about ten days .. me lovely lazy system ..

[#13]

how much u make?...go on tell us....

[SIMBA]

Ressesion: so what! if you possisioned your self correctly you would have no fear. yes a true test of nerves and paitence but not the end of the world. For what it is worth i parked all my spare cash in sasol and concentrated on my other investments. I am sure Iran is going to aid sasols price in the not to distant future.........

[_nova]

same here, I cannot agree more with you blokes. And we're getting saddled with a communist oriented government, the very worst thing that could possible happen right now. Imagine... we're allready in a full blast recession and heading fast for a depression that will be characterised by real asset deflation (the type of assets that require credit to buy) and hyper-inflation on consumables such as staples, think food. The scale of demand destruction has been beyond belief and that simply means that production has come to a grinding halt (think our production figures down to 1960's levels). Farmers can't get credit for planting season (just one example) and are hunkering down. You don't want to see what happens two years from now when real food shortages hit globally and you have to pay R50 for a can of tuna...if you can find it. This is going to be the very worst kind of depression unless a miracle happens. Though the one thing I'm certain of is that when real hunger hits here, 'ole JZ and his domestic garden engineer are going to stoke up the 'ole pseudo-fascist rhetoric and foment a genocide to make Rwanda look like a girl-scout pillow fight by comparison. Yep, I know, fringe lunatic negative attitude, but it is one possible outcome of allowing sociopaths to run a country. And when people get hungry?....

[_nova]

Chartist? Better rethink that long. If the SnP pulls the B plug on 741 then things are going to get ugly (And DOW TRAN she says oversold can become much more oversold).

[#17]

why?...u should know I am always right...

[#18]

Yea... but... um... Hasn't much of this been caused by highly prised capitalism, and um... rescue plans smack of a touch of ... hmmm

[_nova]

Chartist? You're brave boeta! If this does rally then you're going to make a pile because off this level a rally will get the crazies foaming at the mouth and they'll pile into the market with wild abandon and the kitchen sink. Five? This whole ballsup has absolutely nuthin, zero, zilch to do with capitalism, or rather the notion of blaming capatilism is quite quaint. The problem is socialism intervening in the workings of capitalism to make the entire problem so much worse. The REAL problem was the fact that what is seen as 'capitalism' really isn't. You see, those too-big-to-fail companies are not capitalists per se and do not represent capitalism. They are run by salaried employees who think and behave rather similar to aparatchiks and the hierarchies in those companies resemble subjugation far more than laizez faire. You want to lay blame? Lay it at the feet of non-capitalists, non-entrepreneurs, politicians, and socialists as their stupidity and intervention in the functioning of free markets is where the problem is. A bank can only be a 'capitalist' if the owners AND employees of the bank have their own money directly at risk. That isn't the case with every single company that is in trouble... it's other people's money that idiot aparatchik employees have risked.

[_nova]

heh! looks like you're going to 'cream it' if you'll scuze the rude language. Them crazies are piling into the US markets like there's no tomorrow. I can guarantee you this though... there's not one single fund manager or big investor involved in this, or if there is, then his eminence is keeping a truly tight stop and target because the really big shorts are sitting way, waaaaay higher and they're gonna fight this at some point. This really baffles me, the SnP is sitting on a seriously high PE at the moment and folks are buying it? Go figure.