Nevin's Data "Points"

If you want to get a quick sense of just how fast time flies, consider that it was only a year ago this week that Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy—the same day that Bank of America announced its plans to acquire Merrill Lynch, and a day on which, not surprisingly, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down just over 500 points. That, in turn, was just a day before the Fed authorized an $85 billion loan to AIG—and that on the same day that the net asset value of shares in the Reserve Primary Money Fund “broke the buck.” This was made all the more surreal because it was going on while we—and several hundred advisers—were in the middle of our PLANADVISER National Conference. Let’s face it—no matter how busy or hectic your week has been, I’m betting it’s been a walk in the park compared to those times. The funny thing is, looking back (and armed with the prism of 20/20 hindsight), there were lots of signs of the trouble that eventually cascaded like a set of dominos, resetting not ...