The grim news from Wall Street is that the Federal Reserve has decided to stop bailing out merchant banks from the public purse, and as a consequence Lehman Brothers, one of the biggest and most prestigious firms on Wall Street, will be filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
The Fed, never one to sit back and not try and save the market from itself, has announced an offer where banks will be able swap their unsaleable mortgage backed securities for Treasury bonds, but as we write this post, whether that will be enough to prevent the biggest black Monday of all time is yet to be seen.
Nouriel Roubini, quoted in Crikey, says
“What we are facing now is the beginning of the unravelling and collapse of the entire shadow financial system…The step by step, ad hoc and non-holistic approach of Fed and Treasury to crisis management has been a failure so far as plugging and filling one hole at the time is useless when the entire system of levies is collapsing in the perfect financial storm of the century.”
My FSRA License expired a few years ago, so under Australian law I can no longer provide financial advice, but others are saying: you should be afraid.
Whether the market takes the blow and handles the news, or whether it takes a massive dive, you can track/ watch Black Monday live online.
Stock prices
Google Finance now offers live market prices from major stock exchanges as does Yahoo Finance. Both include coverage of the European markets, which may be the first indicators of how big the hit will be following the Lehman Brothers news. The main stock exchanges directly: NYSE , NASDAQ , AMEX .
Blogs
Silicon Alley Insider is one of the better bets among the tech blogs, Henry Blodget is a former trader, and understands the market. AOL’s BloggingStocks will have lots of coverage, and at worst case, hit The Inquisitr logo on this post (or the link), we’ll also be covering some of it as well, particularly any tech angles.
Live video
Livestation once again offers the best live video coverage of all sites. Along with their partner sites, you can also watch Bloomberg live as well, which will offer you non-stop coverage.
Station websites will also offer coverage. CNN is always a good bet.
Other
Look to Twitter and FriendFeed for information, users of both will be providing filtered links of the things you need to know. Reddit will as always offer a unique take. Google News is another outlet you can use. For the blogging reaction, try Technorati .
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