After reading "When Markets Collide" I found myself wishing that El-Erian would speak up about the current market action. 

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:

For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.  (Matthew 7:7)

Yesterday's FT contains El-Erian's current prognosis HERE.  Snippets:

How about today? Does the latest sell-off in global markets provide an opportunity for investors or is it another leg down in a secular bear market for all risk assets?

Today's markets are particularly tricky as they provide the duality of both great opportunity and enormous risk.

First, look for further balance sheet contractions in the financial sector that will continue to suck oxygen out of, and undermine risk appetite in credit and equity markets.

Second, markets are yet to adequately price the morphing of the credit crunch into a full-scale US economic disruption. Prepare for even stronger headwinds fuelled by declining real income and eroding household wealth.

Third, there are no easy policy solutions. Instead, policymakers face an extremely difficult situation in which any action, no matter how well-intentioned, entails unstable feedback loops and imposes distortions elsewhere.

The good news is:

the existence of big opportunities. The toxic mix is causing markets to throw the baby out with the bath water. There is now a littering of high-quality assets whose prices are divorced from their underlying quality.

So, we stay hedged and patiently wait for the right prices.  No fear!  Let Mr. Market spook the others.  Our time will come.

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More good news in today's FT:  Portugal is following Danmark and Israel in embracing the Renault / Nissan electric car.  Read about it HERE.  Snippets:

Portugal will today unveil details of a partnership with Renault and Nissan to create a network for zero-emission electric cars produced by the Franco- Japanese alliance, reports Peter Wise in Lisbon.

José Sócrates, Portugal's socialist prime minister, who has urged the European Union to use more "political muscle" to combat rising fuel prices, said the plan would reduce the country's high level of dependence on imported oil.

Mr Sócrates, who will be accompanied by Carlos Ghosn, president of Renault and Nissan, will set out plans to create a network of battery recharging and swap stations, tax incentives and a promotional programme to make electric cars a viable and attractive option.

Portugal follows Israel and Denmark in agreeing on similar plans to create a market for electric vehicles but Renault-Nissan has named Portugal as its first partner in a "direct programme" to encourage the wide-spread commercialisation of zero-emission cars.

The carmaking alliance said its electric vehicle would be available in Portugal in 2011.

Private sector Portuguese companies will also participate in the project. Energias de Portugal, the country's dominant power utility, is already working with other European groups to gauge the potential impact of electric vehicles on national power grids.