2017-10-20 15:17:15, 回應(1), 人氣(2235)What is a 'Financial Crisis'
A financial crisis is a situation in which the value of financial institutions or assets drops rapidly. A financial crisis is often associated with a panic or a run on the banks, in which investors sell off assets or withdraw money from savings accounts with the expectation that the value of those assets will drop if they remain at a financial institution.
BREAKING DOWN 'Financial Crisis'
A financial crisis can occur as a result of institutions or assets being overvalued, and it can be exacerbated by irrational investor behavior. A rapid string of selloffs can further result in lower asset prices or more savings withdrawals. If left unchecked, the crisis can cause the economy to go into a recessionor depression.
How the 2008 Financial Crisis Happened
The 2008 financial crisis was the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression of 1929. The root cause has been traced to no one single event or reason. Rather, it was the result of a sequence of events, each with its own triggering mechanism that led to near collapse of the banking system. It has been argued that the seeds of the crisis were sown as far back as the 1970s with Community Development Act, which forced banks to loosen their credit requirements for lower-income minorities, creating a market for subprime mortgages.
The amount of subprime mortgage debt, which was guaranteed by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, continued to expand into the early 2000s, about the time the Federal Reserve Board began to cut interest rates drastically to fend off a recession. The combination of loose credit requirements and cheap money spurred a housing boom, which drove speculation, which in turn drove up housing prices.
In the meantime, the investment banks, looking for easy profits in the wake of the dotcom bust and 2001 recession, created collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) out of mortgages purchased on the secondary market. Because subprime mortgages were bundled with prime mortgages, there was no way for investors to understand the risks associated with the product. Around the time when the market for CDOs was heating up, the housing bubble that had been building up for several years was beginning to burst. As housing prices fell, subprime borrowers began to default on loans that were worth more than their homes, accelerating the decline in prices.
When investors realized the CDOs were becoming worthless due to the toxic debt they represented, they tried to unload them, but there was no market for them. This caused a cascade of subprime lender failures, which created a liquidity contagion that worked its way to the upper tiers of the banking system. Two major investment banks, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, collapsed under the weight of their exposure to the subprime debt, and more than 450 banks failed over the next five years. Several of the major banks were on the brink of failure had it not been for a taxpayer-funded bailout.
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, 2021-07-14 23:21:38) What Is a Financial Crisis?
In a financial crisis, asset prices see a steep decline in value, businesses and consumers are unable to pay their debts, and financial institutions experience liquidity shortages. A financial crisis is often associated with a panic or a bank run during which investors sell off assets or withdraw money from savings accounts because they fear that the value of those assets will drop if they remain in a financial institution.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Banking panics were at the genesis of several financial crises of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, many of which led to recessions or depressions.
- Stock market crashes, credit crunches, the bursting of financial bubbles, sovereign defaults, and currency crises are all examples of financial crises.
- A financial crisis may be limited to a single country or one segment of financial services, but is more likely to spread regionally or globally.
What Causes a Financial Crisis?
A financial crisis may have multiple causes. Generally, a crisis can occur if institutions or assets are overvalued, and can be exacerbated by irrational or herd-like investor behavior. For example, a rapid string of selloffs can result in lower asset prices, prompting individuals to dump assets or make huge savings withdrawals when a bank failure is rumored.
Contributing factors to a financial crisis include systemic failures, unanticipated or uncontrollable human behavior, incentives to take too much risk, regulatory absence or failures, or contagions that amount to a virus-like spread of problems from one institution or country to the next. If left unchecked, a crisis can cause an economy to go into a recession or depression. Even when measures are taken to avert a financial crisis, they can still happen, accelerate, or deepen.
Financial Crisis Examples
Financial crises are not uncommon; they have happened for as long as the world has had currency. Some well-known financial crises include:
- Tulip Mania (1637). Though some historians argue that this mania did not have so much impact on the Dutch economy, and therefore shouldn't be considered a financial crisis, it did coincide with an outbreak of bubonic plague which had a significant impact on the country. With this in mind, it is difficult to tell if the crisis was precipitated by over-speculation or by the pandemic.
- Credit Crisis of 1772. After a period of rapidly expanding credit, this crisis started in March/April in London. Alexander Fordyce, a partner in a large bank, lost a huge sum shorting shares of the East India Company and fled to France to avoid repayment. Panic led to a run on English banks that left more than 20 large banking houses either bankrupt or stopping payments to depositors and creditors. The crisis quickly spread to much of Europe. Historians draw a line from this crisis to the cause of the Boston Tea Party—unpopular tax legislation in the 13 colonies—and the resulting unrest that gave birth to the American Revolution.
- Stock Crash of 1929. This crash, starting on Oct. 24, 1929, saw share prices collapse after a period of wild speculation and borrowing to buy shares. It led to the Great Depression, which was felt worldwide for over a dozen years. Its social impact lasted far longer. One trigger of the crash was a drastic oversupply of commodity crops, which led to a steep decline in prices. A wide range of regulations and market-managing tools were introduced as a result of the crash.
- 1973 OPEC Oil Crisis. OPEC members started an oil embargo in October 1973 targeting countries that backed Israel in the Yom Kippur War. By the end of the embargo, a barrel of oil stood at $12, up from $3. Given that modern economies depend on oil, the higher prices and uncertainty led to the stock market crash of 1973–74, when a bear market persisted from January 1973 to December 1974 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 45% of its value.
- Asian Crisis of 1997–1998. This crisis started in July 1997 with the collapse of the Thai baht. Lacking foreign currency, the Thai government was forced to abandon its U.S. dollar peg and let the baht float. The result was a huge devaluation that spread to much of East Asia, also hitting Japan, as well as a huge rise in debt-to-GDP ratios. In its wake, the crisis led to better financial regulation and supervision.
- The 2007-2008 Global Financial Crisis. This financial crisis was the worst economic disaster since the Stock Market Crash of 1929. It started with a subprime mortgage lending crisis in 2007 and expanded into a global banking crisis with the failure of investment bank Lehman Brothers in September 2008. Huge bailouts and other measures meant to limit the spread of the damage failed and the global economy fell into recession.