Whitecaps On Wall Street

Rough seas have reached Wall Street.There seems little chance of a quick return to the bull market of July,when the Dow Jones Industrial Average crested the 14,000 mark.On Monday,the world's central banks continued to inject liquidity into the credit market.The European Central Bank gave 65 billion dollars,while Japan chipped in 5 billion and the U.S. Federal Reserve added 2 billion more.This succeeded in arresting the decline of stock prices in the short run.Just how the market will progress remains unclear.Robert Stovall of Wood Asset Management says we are in a small credit crunch.This could continue into the fall.Michael Metz of Oppenheimer predicts that institutional investors will shift from elite funds to big cap stocks.U.S. spending has exceeded income,so there will be a major tempering of spending,causing a recession by early 2008.Mark Sunshine of First Capital sees a lot of risk ahead,on account of years of over-leveraging and under-capitalized lending.Many funds were invested in the lowest form of securities.In consequence,fund redemptions will cause downward pressure on stock prices.There could be a series of big redemptions over the next 6-9 months as investors flee to quality.ING Direct offers a no-minimum savings account that is currently yielding 4.52%.Among stocks,Johnson and Johnson(JNJ) and Honeywell(HON) are also good options.