This morning I listened to Citadel Capital CEO Ahmed Heikal’s presentation to the Private Equity World MENA 2008 organized in Dubai by Terrapin. He suggested hedge funds would look at their year-end redemptions after the November 15th deadline and carry on selling until they could fulfill redemptions.

That makes good sense. Hedge funds have no choice but to sell down all their assets to repay their obligations to subscribers. If as Mr. Heikal suspects redemptions have been higher than expected then so will be the sell off.

But does that mean the selling will stop on December 31st? It could indeed mark a selling climax - the favored time for a stock market crash by Indian astrologers, although have we not already had one in October-November?

A gloomy delegate from Germany said he thought the bailout packages would string the slow meltdown of stock market values over the next couple of years, and the year-end climax would just be a part of that long process.