One Unrivaled Market Force: Vacation

The FT leads with a prediction that market volatility will decrease over the next week for a simple reason: everyone's going on vacation. Major decisions by banks, hedge funds and mortgage lenders will be on hold as the financial world bails New York, London and Frankfurt for the end of the summer season.

Markets ended in positive territory yesterday and exhibited far greater calm than expected. The calm should last at least until Labor Day, when the big banks will at last have to confront what to do with the $300 billion in unsold loans they're holding as a result of the August credit crunch. Until then the financial world should enjoy a few days of respite from recent chaos. (More credit crisis stories.)