Incipient Panic

"Incipient panic" is how Look Out, This Crunch Is Serious, an opinion piece in The Washington Post, began. Incipient means “beginning to appear”. From where I sit in Virginia, a long way from Wall Street, it would seem we are past the beginning of a panic. Panic in the credit markets has spilled into the equity markets with all the averages & indexes we use setting new record one-day declines and then record advances, then repeating this extreme up and down cycle a few days later as the next injection from the Central Banks or the collapse of the next hedge fund or mortgage lender is announced in the press. If not a panic, it is the lead story on the evening news and fodder for a full hour recently on Larry King live.

The first question from every analyst who has called me in the last week has been, “How is the meltdown in the credit markets affecting the business jet industry?" So I decided to give myself a refresher course, grabbed my dog-eared copy of the classic Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, the more recent and in my mind classic, When Genius Failed, and sat down for a Sunday of reading. I also ordered Devil Take the Hindmost: A history of Financial Speculation, by Edward Chancellor, the author of the afore-mentioned Post article. I also have calls into some good friends whom I consider the best business jet marketers in the business. I looked through the program guide for the National Business Aircraft Association (NBAA) convention, only a month away, and could not find any seminar on the credit markets. Nevertheless, I will be listening for any tremors while I am at NBAA next month.

Last week I wrote about this industry surviving a perfect storm, and warned of a possible approaching tsunami that would test our industry’s ability to survive an even larger Perfect Storm.

I invite you to read along with me and share your thoughts on these interesting times. Remember as a wise man once said, “In Adversity there arises Opportunity”. My partners and I will be looking for those opportunities.