Market Plunge Baffles Wall Street

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704370704575228664083620340.html

Market Drop Fueled by a Crisis, Anxiety and an Error

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/business/economy/07norris.html

Forbes: Greek Woes Or Trader’s Mistake? Take Your Pick
http://blogs.forbes.com/streettalk/2010/05/06/greek woes or traders mistake take your pick/

Eight Things the Plunge Means for Your Money

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703686304575228704252831856.html

BLOGOSPHERE COMMENTS ON THE 2:45pm FINANCIAL MARKET CRASH in May 2010

Stockmarket crash of 998 points – Procter and Gamble down over 30 at one point in late-trading

http://www.subprimeblogger.com/2010/05/06/stock-market-crash-of-998-points-procter-and-gamble-down-over-30-at-one-point-in-late-trading/

Remaining Problems That Could Cause A Second Stock Market Crash in 2010-2011

http://www.getmoneyenergy.com/2009/11/remaining-problems-could-cause-second-stock-market-crash-2010-2011/

Dow Jones Industrial Average | Stock Market Crash By Trading Error?

http://www.busybuzzblogging.com/2762/dow-jones-industrial-average-stock-market-crash-by-trading-error/

The Web Struggling To Keep Up With The Stock Market Crash/Bounce

http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/06/stock-market-crash-web/

Where Things Stand

http://www.bespokeinvest.com/thinkbig/2010/5/6/where-things-stand.html

DEEPER INSIGHTS INTO THE 6th MAY MARKET CRASH

May 6, 2010 Recap: The Day the Market Broke

http://tradermike.net/2010/05/may-6-2010-recap-the-day-the-market-broke/

8 Theories For Why The Stock Market Plunged Almost 1000 Points In A Matter Of Minutes On May 6th

http://www.benzinga.com/266954/8-theories-for-why-the-stock-market-plunged-almost-1000-points-in-a-matter-of-minutes-on-may-

You Don’t See That Every Day: 6 Minutes of Insanity

http://www.smbtraining.com/blog/you-dont-see-that-every-day-6-minutes-of-insanity

What Caused the Crash Today?

http://pragcap.com/what-caused-the-crash-today

Does Anyone Want to Defend the Decision to Cancel Trades?

http://fridayinvegas.blogspot.com/2010/05/does-anyone-want-to-defend-decision-to.html

Algorithmic Trading and Price Volatility

http://rajivsethi.blogspot.com/2010/05/algorithmic-trading-and-price.html

How a Typo Crashed the Market

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-05-07/how-a-typo-crashed-the-market/

Forget The “Trading Error” — Today’s Sharp Pullback In Stocks Is Hardly A Surprise

http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-dont-miss-forest-for-trees-trading-error-or-no-market-closed-down-350-2010-5

Dissecting the Crash by ZeroHedge
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/dissecting crash

7 Facts Nobody Wants to Hear About the Market Plunge by Steve Place
http://www.investingwithoptions.com/2010/05/06/7 facts noone wants to hear about the market plunge/

-998.50. If You Like Roller Coasters, You’ll Enjoy This
http://seekingalpha.com/article/203631 998 50 if you like roller coasters you ll enjoy this?source=hp_wc

OTHER INTERESTING LINKS

Can the government control a stock market crash?

http://money.howstuffworks.com/government-control-stock-market-crash.htm

I suvived the crash of 2:45pm TShirt from StockTwits
http://www.zazzle.com/i_survived_the_crash_tshirt 235723238369605089

The Market Plunge and Liquidity in the Start Up Business
http://seekingalpha.com/article/203665 the market plunge and liquidity in the start up business

(Please feel free to share any good resources you’ve come across in the comments section below.)

1. In depth coverage of Global financial crisis from the Financial Times (FT)
2. John Taylor on the Financial Crisis (John Taylor)
3. How the financial crisis has killed the governance reform agenda
4. The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) View on the Financial Crisis (WHO)
5. Global Financial Crisis Overview & Consequences (Global Issues)
6. The Implications of the Global Financial Crisis for Low-Income Countries (IMF)
7. America in financial crisis from MSNMoney (MSN Money Central)
8. Latest Financial Crisis, Banking crisis and Credit Crunch news (Daily Telegraph)
9. Yahoo Financial Crisis News and Headlines (Yahoo)
10. The Guardian’s View on the Financial Crisis (The Guardian)
11. The Global Financial Crisis by the IFAC (IFAC)
12. Financial crisis may have been good for the climate (New Scientist)
13. Europe’s Response to the Financial Crisis (Europa.eu)
14. Financial Crisis and Recession
15. IFC’s Response to the Financial Crisis (IFC)
16. The First Global Financial Crisis of the 21st Century
17. Colorado State University Guide to the global financial crisis (Colorado State University)
18. AOL Money & Finance Financial Crisis Guide (AOL)
19. The Financial Crisis of 2007-2009: Causes and Remedies
20. Financial Crisis in Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia (Wikipedia)
21. 2007-2009 Financial Crisis (Wikipedia)
22. The World Bank’s View on the Financial Crisis (World Bank)
23. The IMF’s View on the Financial Crisis (IMF)
24. A Plan for Addressing the Financial Crisis by Lucian Bebchuk
25. Iceland Financial Crisis from the Icelandic Government Information Center (Iceland)

There are a lot of good websites and links to resources about the various financial crises over the years including the one we’re in right now.

Here are 25 of the best sites, blogs and detailed reports related to the financial crisis:

1. Global financial crisis of 2008–2009 (Wikipedia)
2. The Financial Crisis by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ)
3. Real Estate Financial crisis of 2007–2009
4. The World Bank Group Crisis Talk (World Bank)
5. Global Economic Crisis by the ADB (Asian Development Bank)
6. The IMF’s Response to the Asian Crisis (IMF)
7. Latest Financial Crisis, Banking crisis and Credit Crunch news (Telegraph)
8. Credit Crisis News from The New York Times (New York Times)
9. International Financial Crises (International Economics)
10. Financial crisis by the African Development Bank (the African Development Bank)
11. The Asian Financial Crisis
12. Financial crisis by the OECD Observer (OECD)
13. The global financial crisis: implications for the South
14. Interview with Danny Leipziger on Financial Crisis (World Bank)
15. America in financial crisis (MSN Money Central)
16. THE 1997-98 ASIAN FINANCIAL CRISIS
17. The 1997 Asian Financial Crisis
18. The Crisis & What to Do About It (NYBooks.com)
19. The Korean Financial Crisis of 1997-98
20. Confronting the Crisis: Its Impact on the ICT Industry
21. The Unfolding Crisis (World Bank)
22. 2008 Financial Crisis (WikiInvest.com)
23. Causes of the Financial Crisis (2009)
24. Global Financial Crisis of 2008
25. Coping with Japan’s financial crisis

In fact, the money is actually being spent on a website redesign as there’s already an existing “website to foster greater accountability and transparency” in the use of funds covered by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 at www.Recovery.Gov.

So, why do we need a multi-million dollar site to report on how much money the government is spending, especially as we’ve already got one?

In an announcement from the General Services Administration, officials mentioned that the new site will allow “taxpayers to see where their dollars are being spent” but failed to reveal pertinent details about the deal where apparently only 59 companies were eligible to bid for the contract.

Although the Recovery.Gov site is supposed to create greater transparency, the management of its own redesign has certainly been surrounded by secrecy and too many unanswered questions.

As for accountability, it’ll be interesting to see how anyone justifies spending US$18million on a website upgrade.

UPDATE:

As it turns out, the contract’s price tag may be quite understandable if we take a closer look at the details:

1. The current cost of the redesign is only US$9.5 million. US$18 million is the total value of the contract including the possibility of an extension through to 2014.
2. US$9.5 million is still an enormous sum to develop a website when you consider that the technology licensing cost for UsaSpending.Gov (a larger site which tracks the entire Federal Budget) was only US$600,000. Using this as a reference, it may be reasonable to assume that a fair value for the project may fall in the region of US$2 to 3 million.
3. Further investigation reveals that there is a very tight deadline on the project, where the contractor has less than 60 days to deliver a finished product. OMB Watch explains that this could be a major reason for the high cost.

In view of the expedited timeline, the premium included in the project cost may be more understandable, even if it’s still unacceptable.

As more people face a personal financial crisis during this economic recession, many will search the Internet for information, products and services which may hopefully help them to solve their money problems.

For the purpose of this article, we thought that it would be interesting to simulate the scenario of a typical individual (such as yourself) searching for answers to their financial crisis on the web.

We are assuming that you’ve just lost your job, can’t pay the mortgage, used up all your savings and don’t have cash to pay the heating bills. As a result, you’re tense, anxious, scared and desperately needing to find a way out of this rut. You’ve heard that you can find anything on the Internet, so you charge online with the hope that you’re going to find something.

One of the problems of searching for stuff online, is that you need to know what you’re searching for and how to search for it. If you venture out without a plan of what you should be looking for, you will spend hours learning interesting new things, but at the end of your session, it’s unlikely that you will have the answers to your financial problems.

So, before starting out, it’s important to make a list of keywords covering some of the potential subjects which may help you handle your personal financial crisis. This is the list we came up:

1. personal financial crisis
2. save money
3. earn money
4. consolidate debt
5. avoid foreclosure
6. get a loan
7. find a job
8. pay medical bills

Personal Financial Crisis

The first phrase is perfect in describing our financial position and a natural place to start. We are ideally looking for a thorough guide which relates to our crisis and offers tips which lead to actionable solutions for our state of near bankruptcy.

After 15 minutes of going through the first 3 pages of results in the search engines for “personal financial crisis”, we were indeed no closer to an answer. Most of the websites from the search results had some sort of information related to personal financial crisis but none of them addressed our core needs.

This is the problem about trying to find good free online financial advice. You have to know where to go as the search engines do not always lead you to the best resources.

Here’s a list of the top results and how it doesn’t really help our dire situation:

(1) When Credit Problems Become a Personal Financial Crisis
http://ezinearticles.com/?When-Credit-Problems-Become-a-Personal-Financial-Crisis&id=1153087

The title from this first result looks interesting but if you’ve come across content from article submission sites (which this was, as evident from the domain ezinearticles.com) you’ll know that it doesn’t have much depth. We took a look anyway.

The article seemed to be fair, highlighting a number of issues which were similar to our predicament, but that was about all it did. At the end of the article, there was a link at the bottom from the author which linked to a site called ‘Solving-Credit-Problems’. Wow, that’s exactly what we need! We click on the link.

SolvingCreditProblems.com is quite an informative site which covers a wide range of subjects related to credit problems such as foreclosure, debt settlement, personal bankruptcy and more. It provide useful tips but did not offer any direct solution to our problems. For example, it shares about what you should and should not do in a debt consolidation but does not go on to suggest some good sites and providers. Overall, not bad, but not what we require.

(2) Causes of Financial Crisis
www.mastercard.com/us/personal/en/learningcenter/debtknowhow/debtwarningsigns/financialcrisis.html

This is a link to an article in the learning center of Mastercard’s website. We may get some useful info here, but it’s unlikely that a credit card company is going to solve our crisis.

Upon entering the site, there was some general advice on what to do in a personal financial crisis but not much else.

(3) Avoiding Personal Financial Crisis
http://family-budgeting.blogspot.com/2006/10/avoiding-personal-financial-crisis.html

This is a personal blog by Bill Nadraszky who share’s good tips to avoid financial problems. Again useful, but not directly helping us.

(4) The Financial Crisis’s Sacrificial Lambs
www.meshio.com/2009/02/the-financial-crisiss-sacrificial-lambs/

Yes, we feel like a sacrificial lamb now, perhaps this article was going to truly relate and provide answers. We took a look and found a short post featuring the Top 25 People to blame for the financial crisis. Interesting, but not solving our cash problems.

(5) 5 errors to avoid in a financial crisis
www.bankrate.com/brm/news/debt/20050524b1.asp

The fact that the brief description in Google stated that this article was from May 2005 was not encouraging. Any article addressing our needs should ideally be quite recent so that it can cover the benefits from the Economic Recovery Stimulus Package. We clicked and found another general article. Good content but much of the same again.

(6) Take Control of Your Financial Crisis
www.credit.com/products/loans/Facing-a-Financial-Crisis.jsp

This was by far the best link so far. The guide is detailed and provides clear steps which you can take to manage your personal financial crisis. It would have been good to see more links to suggested financial service providers.

(7) Making a Better Life: Preparing for the Post-Katrina Personal Financial Crisis
www.brookings.edu/opinions/2005/1018communitydevelopment_lee.aspx?rssid=new+orleans

An article directly related to Katrina from 2005. No answers here.

(8) Twentyhood
www.twentyhood.com/2008/11/24/college-sophomore-fixes-personal-finance-crisis-or-does-he/

A blog post talking about teaching personal finance in high school to solve personal financial crisis issues. Interesting.

(9) Books on Business & Economics
http://www.alibris.com/search/books/subject/Business%20Economics%20Personal%20Finance%20Money%20Management

Books may help, but not now, we need immediate solutions.

(10) financial crisis- Personal Finance Forums
http://www.savingadvice.com/forums/personal-finance/6719-financial-crisis.html

Looks promising but it turns out to be a 2005 forum post by someone claiming to be in a personal financial crisis because he can’t get a loan to buy a piece of land.

Hardly the same as not being able to pay your gas bills!

CCH Financial Crisis News Center

To follow current events on the financial crisis from the legal community, you should take a look at the CCH Financial Crisis News Center which may be found at FinancialCrisisUpdate.com.

This site is maintained by legal editors who state this about their site:

The CCH Financial Crisis News Center is intended to provide the legal community and others with news and links to vital information on the current financial crisis.

Recovery.Gov

Another site which is essential for tracking the financial crisis and the economic recession is Recovery.Gov. In the site, it states their mission as:

• Education: Explain the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
• Transparency: Show how, when, and where the money is spent
• Accountability: Provide data that will allow citizens to evaluate the Act’s progress and provide feedback

It goes on to say:

The site will include information about Federal grant awards and contracts as well as formula grant allocations. Federal agencies will provide data on how they are using the money, and eventually, prime recipients of Federal funding will provide information on how they are using their Federal funds.

To keep abreast of the latest developments, Recovery.Gov also lets you sign up for updates via Email and allows you to Share your Recovery story.

More: Who Benefits from the US Stimulus Package?