The August Heat

Not the August we wanted.

With the end of Summer well within our sights this was a Summer to remember, but not for the usual reasons. The hottest places in August turned out to be Wall Street, not Ocean City.

As Summer holidays began in early August, financials started heating up. The US Congress and President Obama barely beat out the default clock on August 2nd by raising the debt ceiling, which was met the following week with a downgrade by Standard & Poors on August 5th sending the markets into a volatile few weeks.

At first markets plummeted with the Dow’s biggest one day decline in 3 years. Next came the UK riots and the FTSE fell below 5000 for the first time in a year.

The heads of France and Germany met to try and fix the debt crisis, but turmoil followed as they were unable to come to a resolution. Unemployment continued to climb, all the while the Arab Spring brought chaos from Tripoli to Damascus.

And to close out the month Steve Jobs resigns from the second most valuable company in the world and a hurricane pounds the Eastern US causing at least $10 billion in damage.

Hello September.

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