Wreck-javik

Poor little Iceland. The country is probably best described as a hedge fund with a vote in the UN. The stock exchange there was shut down for three days and it just reopened. Down 77%.

Kaupthing Bank hf, Glitnir Bank hf and Landsbanki Islands hf collapsed this month with debts equivalent to as much as 12 times the size of Iceland’s economy. The three banks accounted for about 76 percent of the ICEX 15 Index’s value prior to the nationalization.
The OMX Iceland 15 Index fell 2,317.23, or 77 percent, to 687.39 as of 11:48 a.m. local time. Five of the 13 other stocks in the index didn’t trade, while the five that did account for about 7.1 percent of the index’s value.
Trading was halted since Oct. 9 after the measure lost 30 percent in nine days as the country’s financial system collapsed. Iceland’s delegation started talks in Moscow today to secure an emergency loan of as much as 4 billion euros ($5.47 billion) from Russia.
The country should seek aid from the IMF and later apply for European Union membership and adopt the euro, Foreign Minister Ingibjorg Solrun Gisladottir wrote in Morgunbladid on Oct. 13.

Posted by on October 14th, 2008 at 9:53 am


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