But is it over? I don't think so.
If you follow the currency exchange markets you'll see that, if things keep up at this pace, we will reach the same tipping point of 2008 around October 2011.
EUR/USD since 2008 until today from Yahoo Finance
The strength of the US Dollar and it's role as the reserve currency of the world economy is at record lows. The two rounds of quantitive easing, performed by the FED, have strongly depreciated the USD.
"A lot of countries and investors rely on the dollar as a store of value for their assets because it has the Reserve Currency Status. It can be weak, but if global investors start to have legitimate doubts about the safety of their assets parked and backed by the US Dollar, then we have a much bigger problem than just a slow recovery. We could end up in a currency crisis that takes down the entire global economy, thus sending us right back to where we were in the depths of the financial crisis."
Guest Commentary: QE2 is Damaging the Economy and Reducing GDP Growth on DailyFx 28 April 2011
But not only that. The biggest banks, the ones that were too big to fail, are even bigger than before.
"Paris-based BNP Paribas, the world’s biggest bank by assets, increased its balance sheet by 59 percent to 2.29 trillion euros ($3.5 trillion) since the beginning of 2007, an amount equal to 117 percent of France’s gross domestic product. Assets at London-based Barclays jumped 55 percent to 1.55 trillion pounds ($2.6 trillion), or 108 percent of U.K. GDP. Santander’s rose 30 percent to 1.08 trillion euros, about the size of Spain’s GDP."
Quoted from a Bloomberg article called European Banks Growing Bigger ‘Sowing the Seeds’ of Next Crisis by By Andrew MacAskill and Jon Menon - December 1, 2009
And what about their performance?
"Bailed-out banks are the nine worst performers in the 64- member Bloomberg European Banks Index since Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for bankruptcy on Sept. 15, 2008. RBS plunged 85 percent for the biggest decline. Lloyds dropped 63 percent, Commerzbank 58 percent and Dexia 43 percent, compared with the 18 percent decline in the index."
Quoted from a Bloomberg article called European Banks Growing Bigger ‘Sowing the Seeds’ of Next Crisis by By Andrew MacAskill and Jon Menon - December 1, 2009
But not only that. Oil prices are going through the roof as we approach the 2008 high of 150$.
OIL prices since 2008 until today from XTB trading platform
Stay alert and watch the signals from the markets and by October 2011 we'll see what happens.
P.S (30-04-2011): It seems that I'm not alone on this forecast. Here's other articles, wrote well before this one, that point to the same conclusion...
"Bill Achtmeyer, my long-time partner and Chairman and Managing Partner of the Parthenon Group, agrees that macroeconomics eventually win out and we should carefully brace ourselves for what might loom ahead — the next crisis in 2011."
Source: Harvard Business Review The Next Crisis: Coming in 2011 on Monday September 28, 2009.
"The second half of 2011 will mark the point in time when all the world’s financial operators will finally understand that the West will not repay in full a significant portion of the loans advanced over the last two decades. For LEAP/E2020 it is, in effect, around October 2011"
Source: The Coming Economic Crisis in 2011 on December 16, 2010.
"Central banks and official bodies have parked record sums of dollars at the US Federal Reserve for safe-keeping, indicating a clear loss of trust in commercial banks. "
UK
"The banks have again lost confidence and so lend less to each other. The situation is not as bad as in 2008-2009, but you see that it is going little by little in this direction."
Source: ECB's Coene: Crisis Heading to 2008/9 Level on September 2, 2011
"There is some hope here that stronger domestic demand can help buffer the shock from exports. But make no mistake, if the drawdown from exports is as big as in 2008, there will inevitably be an impact on local demand as well..."
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