Financial markets spooked by financial and geopolitical crises

The Bucharest Stock Exchange and the RON are under pressure again, after financial problems in Spain and military tensions in the Korean Peninsula spooked international investors, who are afraid of a new worldwide recession.
Analysts are already talking about an “uncanny resemblance” to the Lehman Brothers collapse episode in October 2008, when international financial markets were one step away from disintegration, after the massive cash injections from the European Central Bank and Fed failed to contain the lending price upward trend. Now banks suspect each other that they might have solvency problems, because they hold bonds of countries that might experience problems and are no longer lending money to each other.
Investors worldwide have again taken shelter to safe assets – such as US bonds or gold, dropping assets they see as riskier.
The Bucharest Stock Exchange lost 10% yesterday, with the BET index, which gauges the performance of the ten most liquid stocks, now below the level at the beginning of the year and 27% below the peaks reached at the beginning of spring.
On the interbank forex market, the euro stagnated at 4.19 RON, but dealers say stability was induced by the indirect intervention of the National Bank, which had allegedly sold foreign currency through a major local bank.