DL,
no offence. I stand by what i had said too.

its too early to call any recovery in 1 year. we might have seen the short term bottom on Monday. it might take another 1-2 years before we get to see another retest and perhaps further downmove.

what we have experience currently is just the financial shakeup and credit crunch. the weakest link in the financial and credit markets are getting purged.

it does not end here. the real economy will be affected.

once the fog lifts among the banks and financial markets, there will be plenty of restructuring and consolidation. likewise, the credit lines to corporates and consumers will be reviewed and reassessed.

SWFs and Govts can only do this far, stepping in with regulations and stimulus plans. what we have seen is a dislocation of the financial markets. it has far reaching implications than mere monetary or fiscal policies.

and the hard figures you are refering to are what we refer to as lagged data. the markets and economies are dynamic and not static. past results does not neccessarily indicate future performances.