Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/January 2008 stock market volatility (2nd nomination)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Keep. Also, Black Monday (2008) already redirects back to this article. GlassCobra 16:22, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

January 2008 stock market volatility
AfDs for this article: 
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Article consists entirely of contemporary market commentary with little or no evidence of lasting economic significance. Fails per WP:RECENT. Ronnotel (talk) 19:49, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep, looks like a good article to me. Certainly it might be merged into another article at some point, but for now this was a significant event with quite a bit of coverage. Mackan79 (talk) 20:13, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, but my point is that there will always be contemporanious coverage of the market - hundreds of articles a day in the business press. What would make this article notable would be commentary written about the event weeks or even months afterwards. Ronnotel (talk) 20:19, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Speedy Keep - Some people got richer and some people got poorer in a world-wide finance panic *:::Yes, that's a better search. Of more relevance is the news search, where I see two hits - from an Indian source. Still not sure that establishes notability - perhaps the article should be renamed to that date. Ronnotel (talk) 21:01, 1 April 2008 (UTC)that resulted in governments having an emergency lowering of interest rates and France in particular being made aware of its inadequate banking investment regulations. All this in the context of a world-wide housing bubble burst and lack of liquidity in the home loan finance market. The reverberations of that Black Monday in Jan 2008 continue as we speak. On the other hand, the stock market has completely recovered from the Great Depression and World War Two. Let's delete those articles. We will always have wars. What makes old historical wars like WWII important or relevant to me? Pokemon is obviously relevant so let's keep that. But billions of dollars lost in the stock market in the past? Who cares so long as the current value of Dow Jones is now recovered? Besides, its all about icky stuff like numbers and money instead of cool stuff like entertainment. WAS 4.250 (talk) 20:32, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
 * What makes previous financial panics notable, as with everything else at WP, are reliable sources describing the event. The phrase "January 2008 stock market volatility" draws exactly 9 hits on Google - 4 of which are related to the WP page itself. This page needs some non-contemporaneous citations to be notable. Ronnotel (talk) 20:44, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Try something like this Google search instead, oh just 40000 hits. even if half of those results has nothing to do with this particular event, then 20000 is still quite a lot don't you think? --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:48, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's a better search term. However, of more relevance is the news search, which returns two hits, both from an Indian source. Perhaps the name of the article should be changed to January 21st 2008 stock market volatility, which may have a better chance of being notable. Ronnotel (talk) 21:01, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The title should be changed. I recommend Black Monday (January 2008). WAS 4.250 (talk) 21:29, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I would not object provided there was a reliable source to substantiate the name. Ronnotel (talk) 21:39, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Read the first paragraph of the article and its sources. WAS 4.250 (talk) 21:44, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Every claim in the article is backed by a published reliable source. "This page needs some non-contemporaneous citations to be notable" is false. Where did you get that bizarre notion? WAS 4.250 (talk) 20:52, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Um, WP:RECENT for a start. Ronnotel (talk) 21:01, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
 * That's an essay. Not a policy. Not a guideline. And if it does say what you just said then it is a bad essay. WAS 4.250 (talk) 21:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. Yes, it's WP:RECENT, but it's also pretty significant. I would prefer that this be merged into a broader article on the 2008 recession or the 2006-on finance crunch but there is no reason to delete this. --Dhartung | Talk 22:36, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
 * DELETE - The main problem with this article was when it was recent and it was being claimed in the article that there was a stock market crash going on. This was a major POV problem, since there wasn't a stock market crash going on.  When the US market opened on Tuesday it closed down a bit over 1% - The WSJ had an article today about the market for this quarter - over half the days were up or down over 1% (and I don't think this is a record).  Please notice that the market is up from that Tuesday.  There was no crash, nothing that deserved the name "Black Monday" - I wouldn't call it a normal day - but if you look back over the last 5 years, there were probably 10-15 days of equal significance, e.g. the "Bear Stearns Friday" that happened a couple of weeks ago was probably at least as important.


 * There were news sources in the article - e.g. Al Jezera and the Scotsman - screaming about a Black Monday. They were wrong and they look pretty foolish now.  The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and the Economist of course had some words about the market action, but were not screaming about a market crash.  We've got to have truly reliable sources on this, somebody is always hyping or screaming about something in financial markets.  We can not pass along third rate market commentary claiming that there's a crash going on.  People's money is a stake.  We should be ashamed of the panic pushing that was in this article.


 * There's no way that Wikipedia can offer commentary on this type of event. There certainly is no way that we should be panic pushing the way we were on that article, making predictions, etc.  The article has essentially been stripped of it's POV now - but essentially nothing is left "The market went down, the market went up, the market went down, the market went up,..." That about covers it.  Why do we want such an article in an encyclopedia? Nobody is going to read it  Smallbones (talk) 23:07, 1 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Smallbones, your claims are inaccurate and US-centric. You talk of "the market" as if there were only one market. The financial world is far more complex than you realize and that black Monday had effects that are still being felt. Do you know anything about Chinese stock markets? Housing derivatives? US government interest rates? Your original research here is childish and ignorant. Don't delete articles beyond your education. WAS 4.250 (talk) 23:35, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Please see and WP:NPA.  Smallbones (talk) 23:46, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
 * "Apparently in response to the fall in non-U.S. markets, the U.S. Federal Reserve announced a surprise rate cut of 0.75% on Tuesday at 8 a.m." - do you suggest that the US interest rate was not affected? Do you claim that it is not still affected? Other effects also continue to exist. WAS 4.250 (talk) 00:25, 2 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't be surprised if this and Bear Stearns Friday (if that is what anyone has called it) are eventually discussed in the same article. Otherwise it seems we should avoid the POV, but I think articles on events like these are a good feature of Wikipedia.  A related article is Subprime mortgage crisis, but I don't think this article could be merged into there.Mackan79 (talk) 00:04, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

"Just wait and see. Editors writing today do not have an historical perspective on events that are going on today, and should not pretend to. It is perfectly fine to write about ongoing events with an eye towards benefiting future readers, but without attempting to prejudge what will be regarded as historically important ten (or 100) years from now."
 * From WP:RECENT (yes, I read right to the end)
 * Seems sensible to me. This event was front-page news for several days in what I read, and is still being mentioned regularly in relation to current economic events.  If at a future point it is more appropriate to  either rewrite the article or merge into an article of wider scope or delete it then so be it.  People at the moment are reading about this elsewhere and might want information here.  Let's leave it for now - there's no rush.
 * It's also a little peculiar to use an essay rather than a guideline or policy to quickly justify a deletion - especially an essay which is as notably equivocal on the subject as WP:RECENT, and whose most prominently mentioned test-case resulted in the opposite decision to that the proposer wants here.  But that's their prerogative. Knepflerle (talk) 23:28, 1 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment: There is already a "Subprime crisis impact timeline" article where this information could be added. Like Morgan said, markets are guaranteed to fluctuate, it would be a bad precedent if fluctuations in and of themselves could be considered encyclopedic. WillOakland (talk) 01:18, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I see Subprime crisis impact timeline, but actually the more similar article appears to be Economic crisis of 2008. Perhaps this article could be merged with the latter, although I'm still not sure it makes sense to put things together in that way so soon (or to delete).  WP:Recentism notwithstanding, I think maybe it's best to treat these events as they are, and combine them only when it's clear the commentators have done so. Mackan79 (talk) 01:43, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Even if the fluctuation in the market has little effect in the long-term, the unusual amount of concern, comment and coverage it received at the time is notable, verifiable and sourced. Markets do indeed flucuate, and almost none of the fluctuations cause massive changes in the confidence of commentators like this one did. Knepflerle (talk) 08:36, 2 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Merge into Economic crisis of 2008, as they're clearly on the same subject; even just three months later, this article already shows very little long-term notability, and what little there is can be merged into that article. Terraxos (talk) 05:46, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment - while everybody was discussing here whether a 1.1% drop in the Dow was a world wide financial panic (to quote from above) nobody seemed to notice that the Dow was up 3.2% yesterday (390+ points). According to today's WSJ "Tuesday's gain was the third gain of 390 points or more in less than a month" and there were three other 300+ daily gains since September.  My point is not that we should cover and give commentary on all these days.  Very likely we should not cover any of these days - and we certainly shouldn't give market commentary or make predictions on them.  If we don't cover 3%+ days we shouldn't cover -1.1% days.  I'd be a bit more accomadating if there were some after-the-event commentary in reliable financial news sources saying that this day was significant, but I suspect all that they would say is "boy, wasn't that nothing."  Waiting to see whether something else will happen to make this day appear significant is simply against WP:Crystal.  There seems to be some consensus starting to emerge for merge, and I wouldn't argue against this, but the end result will be that very little gets merged.  Smallbones (talk) 13:40, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Again, the difference is the amount of high-profile concern from commentators in every news outlet in the January case, and the absence in the case of yesterday. It's the highly-reported crisis of confidence that is notable, even if you feel that crisis was unjustified. Knepflerle (talk) 19:10, 2 April 2008 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict) Smallbones, your inability to read is amazing. You say "a 1.1% drop in the Dow was a world wide financial panic (to quote from above)". Are you unable to comprehend or are you trolling or paid by the finance industry? Where does the article say what you just said? It does not. I did not. The panic DID NOT CONSIST OF THE DOW'S CHANGES. The article is not about the Dow's changes. The Dow numbers are only relevant for showing the limits of the panic and the success at lowered interest rates and other measures at restoring some degree of confidence. Confidence that is still shaky. Read the financial section of any day's newspaper. Read the political speeches. Why is Bush saying he is going to restructure the financial sector? Can you guess? Could it be there are problems? Problems that manifested themselves in a world wide panic in January sparking this latest round of emergency confidence building measures. And you are trying to claim "nothing to see here ... move along". Please. Save it for the sheep. We don't know what will happen next and it is not Wikipedia's job to forecast ; but the panic happened. It was real. Its effects are still with us. It does not become important or unimportant depending on what the Dow does or does not do. Any more than a battle in a war becomes important or unimportant based on who eventually wins. The people in the battle are just as dead no matter who eventually wins. And the winners and the losers in that panic still won and lost regardless of what the markets do or don't do in the future. WAS 4.250 (talk) 19:19, 2 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I'll repeat:Please see and WP:NPA.  There is no reason for your personal attacks.  I'll suggest that you just leave this page, after you apologize.  We've both had our say.  Smallbones (talk) 21:02, 2 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Both the FTSE 100 and BSE Sensex had the biggest falls in their history - only presenting it in terms of the Dow is very misleading. -Halo (talk) 00:26, 3 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep or if we really have to, merge into Economic crisis of 2008. Record loses on multiple foreign exchange markets, a FED rate cut that "saved" the dow jones (which was 5% down in pre rate-cut trading). Like Bear Sterns and the Societe General, shapeshifting moments in the trading of this first quarter of 2008. Besides, negative events always get much more coverage and general interest than positive effects on the markets. We have a navbox full of "Black mondays" but I've never heard anyone talk about "Green mondays" or something when markets make record profits. As such Smallbones' argument "we don't write about 3+% gains either" is irrelevant. No one does, positive news is almost never interesting. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 23:26, 2 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Merge into Economic crisis of 2008. The January crisis was certainly important, but since the aftermath is continuing, I see no reason why the article should stand on its own. Further, a lot of the prose is of the form "on day X market Y fell by Z points"; this should be condensed into a table. Andareed (talk) 19:13, 3 April 2008 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.