ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on activities occurring in financial markets during the period 2010–2011. It relates several significant events, including the recovery of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DOW), the continuing controversy over the “flash crash” that occurred on May 26, 2010 and concerns over increased stock market price volatility. It recounts concerns raised by the continuing high unemployment rate, the still troubled housing market, skyrocketing energy prices and worrisome volatility in commodity markets. It sets forth a description of the continuing battle over US government funding, which threatened a government shutdown and led to a downgrade in the credit rating of US government debt. This chapter ends with a chronicle of the rise and fall of MF Global. The bankruptcy of this giant financial services firm in October 2011 briefly raised the spectra of another financial crisis.
