Many ingredients for a further fall in prices are easy to identify: a return of Iranian oil to world markets; a mild northern winter; a shortage of capacity to store oil on land; the high cost of oil tankers to serve as floating storage; and the cockroach-like resilience of US shale oil producers in North Dakota, where production rose in November.
Still, with the northwest portion of the island designated a Unesco World Heritage Site, and with fairly stringent limitations on development, Majorca has been shielded from any further fall in prices, which are now about 10 percent off their peak, said Michael Cunnington, an agent for the brokerage Savills in Majorca.
Using data for stockmarkets and commodities, the authors were able to go all the way back to 1693 (for British shares) and 1784 (for sugar).Their back-tested strategy was to buy those assets whose price was higher than its average over the previous five months, and to go short (bet on a further fall in price) on those assets that were below their average.
At that point the cycle goes into reverse: as asset prices fall, collateral constraints tighten, squeezing borrowing, which results in further falls in prices.
The future's red Discontented doctors Any flavour but democratic Hosed away Phoney war blues ReprintsYet a third of assets in equities is still a hefty chunk, and further falls in prices of equities must eventually hurt the industry.
As always happens in big financial crises, a self-reinforcing spiral has come into effect, which threatens the entire system: buyers get scared, which causes prices to fall, which scares off more buyers, which causes further falls in prices until the market virtually freezes up.
Brown is forecasting "further falls in prices" for the Lower Mainland towards the end of this year.
The prospect of ultra-low interest rates persisting for years to come has been conjured up by a leading Bank of England policymaker after a further fall in oil prices and shares in London sinking to their lowest level since late 2012.
In other words, if there is no further fall in stock prices, the price/earnings ratio of the S&P is going to move higher.
The outlook for the U.S. current account deficit is mixed: The recession, a rise in private savings and a fall in investment, and a further fall in commodity prices will tend to shrink it, but a stronger dollar, global demand weakness and a larger U.S. fiscal deficit will tend to worsen it.
Drivers of petrol cars have been enjoying sub-£1 prices since before Christmas, as the further fall in the price of crude oil filtered through to the pumps.
