in the spotlight: U.S. Markets ;

Under the present circumstances, looking to the U.S. market for an indication of where our market will go seems like a better idea than before.

More predicatble market movements
If we know where people look, there's more chance we know what they are thinking. That is an advantage of the American Credit Crisis. Its potential to affect world economies has caused traders and investors the world over to watch the U.S. closely. Over the past week, it appears that world markets have been taking their cue from the U.S. Theoretically, this makes activity a bit more predictable.

The world hasn't decoupled
Mr. "Bearbull", Ron Nathan of the Philippine Daily Inquirer is among those who believe that the world has not decoupled from the U.S. Stock Markets. He mentioned it in his article published last 29th.

It appears that the world is united in believing that if the U.S. slows, the world will slow-albeit relatively less for the developing world.

Analysis
Applying this theory of mine, I noticed a headline on CNBC.com, referring to a good week in the U.S., that read: Stocks Have a Super Week

Therefore, I still think we'll see that downward pressure I blogged about before, at the start of the coming week. However, my overall sentiment is that there's a good chance that any slow and downward movement will be overshadowed by an overall rise in Philippine Stock prices next week.