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What a disaster of a day for the markets. Oh wait... unless you were effectively short, or looking to buy for the long term.

DOW? Down 504.48. I don't think Sub-10k is that unlikely, but it'll be a fight.
TSX? Down 515.55

Still a ways to go. This might clear some cobwebs though. I'm getting a mite scared about things though:

"In a third step, [the Fed] said it will temporarily allow commercial banks to extend liquid funds to their brokerage affiliates for assets that would normally be accepted in tri-party repurchase agreements." [link]

Nothing like suspending laws to fix a problem. There MIGHT just be a reason for these laws in the first place. Like, I dunno... separating arms of financial institutions? Protecting the assets of its customers (in this case, institutional customers)? I dunno. I like the word "temporary", like that ever holds in the financial world.

Expect any other stand-alone brokerage firms to be bought up by banks now that BoA has Merrill. There are still banks with money to burn out there.

There seems to be a liquidity fund being built too... no small part made up of lent money.

And AIG can now borrow from... itself?

Talk about a shell game.