Yes, as the Talking Heads of the sell-side take a much needed day off, exhausted from all the verbal dancing and spinning they’ve been doing to hype the market since the mid-March Bear Stearns mini-crash, now you can get a clearer picture of what’s really happening in the world—not just some clownish version.

Have a look at the Asia-Pacific markets over the past 5 days to see the sell-off that has occurred. I’ll make it easy:

Japan

China

Hong Kong

India

The UK is another.

FTSE 100

Since five days doesn’t really tell the story as to how many trillions have been lost in portfolio values in the past few months, have a look at the three-month charts. These show how the trend lines established after international central banks flooded the global financial system (in response to the "liquidity problem" that took down Bear Stearns) have been broken in the past several days.

Japan

China

Hong Kong

India

FTSE 100

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. I think, in combination, these charts amount to a book. Study them this week and try to ignore the hype that will return tomorrow.

The bottom line is that the Financial sector is drowning under the weight of their holdings of asset-backed securities for which there is no market. That’s not because there is a lack of liquidity, which bankers are telling you. It is because there is permanent damage to those assets and they should be written off, not written down or worse ignored.

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Links & Charts

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International Economics Review

US Economic Calendar.

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International Equity Markets Review

Europe

Here is the latest session data for the bourses of Europe.

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Here is the latest session data for the London stock exchange FTSE.

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Here is the latest session data for the German DAX.

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Here is the latest session data for the French CAC 40.

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Here is the latest session data for the Milan Italy stock exchange MIBTEL.

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Here is the latest session data for the Swiss market index.

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Asia-Pacific

Here is the latest session data for the Asia-Pacific stock exchanges.

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Here is the latest chart for the Japanese Nikkei 225 index.

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Here is the latest chart for the Singapore index .

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Here is the latest chart for the Shanghai Composite index .

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Here is the latest chart for the Hong Kong Hang Seng index .

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Here is the latest chart for the India BSE 30 index .

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Here is the latest chart for the Australian All Ordinaries index .

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US Equity Markets Review

DJIA (interactive) chart

NASDAQ Composite (interactive) chart

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Oil Review

Here is the e-miNY Jan-08 Crude Oil chart.

Interactive Chart of Daily Crude Oil:

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Gold & Precious Metals Review

Spot gold chart for the week

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Spot silver chart for the week

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Forex Review

Here is the chart of the week's trading in the $USD.

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