So what now?
We generally try to be chirpy and optimistic here at HEXUS.channel, but the political chaos we woke up to the day after the general election doesn't look like great news to us.
Apart from the fact that no political business will get done (not necessarily a bad thing - Ed) until we work out who's in charge, the uncertainty has given already nervous markets the heebie-jeebies.
One manifestation of this is our currency - the pound. The strength of our currency against others is essentially an indication of the perceived relative heath and prospects of our economy. Political instability is rarely good news for business and markets have responded by selling off the quid.
Since 5 May - the day before the election, the pound has fallen by five cents - around three percent - against the dollar. A pound will now buy you $1.46, and the reason you should care is that most tech gear is sold in dollars. That means something that cost a hundred dollars two days ago now costs $103.
This affects the whole channel. End-user demand is dampened by the increased prices, which affects retailers and distributors. Even the US vendors who sell in dollars are affected because their products, in effect, cost more.
And that was only part of the market-related fun in the past 24 hours. You probably will have seen footage of Greeks rioting at the severe austerity measures being demanded of them in return for financial assistance. This has affected global stock markets as traders get defensive in anticipation of a Greek debt default.
While this drove the Dow and NASDAQ down yesterday, there was also an alarming anomaly that caused the Dow to fall, at one stage, by over 1,000 points. CNBC is reporting that the cause may have been, of all things, a typo. It reckons a trader typed ‘billion' instead of ‘million' when submitting a trade. While much of that fall was recovered, the Dow and NASDAQ still closed down over three percent.
If a typo was the reason for the biggest intra-day fall in the Dow's history, to us it's amazing this sort of thing doesn't happen on a regular basis. Not that we ever make typos, of course.
