Already UK, German and possibly other countries will be ready to go with major statements before trading starts today.
Believe it our not the overnight share futures market on Saturday morning has the ASX200 opening up 27 points!
We will have to assess the Federal Government's package for our financial system, with its blanket three guarantee for all bank deposits and wholesale funding for the banks.
Wall Street was off about 1.5% on Friday night after a day of wild swings that saw the Dow trade through a 1,000 point range with a huge fall of over 600 points and then a big rebound of over 300 points.
But the close was less frenetic than on Thursday and there was one very noticeable difference.
The afternoon rally pushed the 30-stock index as high as 8,901.28 before the gains were surrendered in the final minutes.
On Friday the late wave of sharp selling in the last hour of trading from Thursday and previous days of last week, was notable for its absence, a sign of a falling away in the pressures from mutual fund redemptions to meet the demand from investors wanting their money back.
That was seen as a cautious positive point and will be looked for this week.
But US shares were down for an eighth straight day on Friday and the huge swings during the day (several through 500 points or more) produced the biggest swing ever in the history of the Dow (all these unwanted records!).
But by the close Friday the S&P 500 was off just 10.7 points, or 1.2% to 899.22; the Dow lost 128 points, or 1.5%, to 8,451.19 and Nasdaq added 4.39 points to 1,649.51 (yes it rose, thanks to IBM's solid third quarter profit and surprise $US4 billion debt raising).
Reuters said it was the worst week on record for the Standard & Poor's 500. Bloomberg said the worst since 1933. For the Dow it was the worst week ever in its present form.
The S&P 500 closed on Friday below the 900 level for the first time in five and a half years; and Friday's close, both the Dow and the S&P 500 were down 18.2% for the week, while Nasdaq was down 15.3%.
Since the beginning of October alone, all three major indexes have lost more than 20%.
European and Asian markets posted their worst weekly retreats on record as exchanges in Russia, Indonesia and Ukraine suspended trading in an effort to halt a global rout that has wiped out $US25 trillion from global equities this year.
Developing country stocks also posted a record weekly plunge, with the MSCI Emerging Market Index losing 21%, led by a 20% slide in Brazil and a 16% retreat in India and Australia, although we are a developed country, not an emerging one.
But nervy investors have been treating us like that, hence the sharp fall in the value of the Australian dollar, down from around 77 USc to just over 64 USc.
Friday saw the Dow twice recover from drops of 500 points or more, first in the opening hour and again after 2 pm. The S&P 500 and the Dow are both down more than 40% from their peaks last October. The S&P 500 has lost 42.6% from its peak a year ago. In 1929 the market fell by 44.6% from its highest level.
Adding to the pressure has been the sharp sell-off in energy and materials (resource stocks) in the US and UK.
Oil prices fell to around $US77 in New York and gold slumped $US27 to $US859 an ounce, giving up all those gains from above $US900 an ounce mid week. Gold though was still up 6.6% on the week. Copper lost 20% over the week.
Credit markets stayed frozen as the cost of borrowing in dollars in London for three months rose for a fourth consecutive day.
But the late easing in pressures on Wall Street (and in some credit spreads) came after the International Swaps and Derivatives Association reported that the settlement of Lehman's debt had "little or no'' unanticipated costs and didn't cause any firms to fail.
Sellers of credit-default protection on bankrupt Lehman's debt will have to pay holders more than 91c in the dollar after an auction Friday, setting up the biggest-ever payout in the $55 trillion market.
But that was 'only' an estimated $US7.3 billion more than expected and many banks and other investors had written down their Lehman holdings anyway and won't have to provide any more funds for extra cover.
Europe's Stoxx 600 slumped 7.5%, extending the week's fall to 22%, the biggest since records began in January 1987.
Anglo-Irish Bank Corp. Ireland's third-biggest lender, and ING Group, the Netherlands' largest financial group, plunged more than 42%, leading declines in banks and insurers. ArcelorMittal, the world's biggest steelmaker, sank 34% to its lowest close since 2005. The drop in Anglo-Irish Bank came despite the blanket guarantee to depositors in Irish financial groups.
The slump in the Stoxx 600 is now off 44% this year, confirming that the impact of the crunch and the freeze is probably deepest in the eurozone, and also in countries like UK.
National benchmark indexes retreated in all of the 18 western European markets. Germany's DAX dropped 22%; France's CAC 40 slid 22% and in London banks, insurers and miners were sold down heavily as panic selling drove the FTSE 100 to its lowest level since May 2003, off 21%.
Rio Tinto hit a three-year low, dropping 11.9% to £24.24 in tandem with plunging metals prices on worries about a global recession. Copper shed 11% last week alone.
That also saw BHP Billiton sold off as oil, gold and coal prices fell around the world.
BHP closed down 7.9% in London at 954½p.
At Friday's prices, Rio was at a record 26% discount to BHP's 3.4-share bid. In April it was at a 14% discount. There is now a growing feeling in London that the deal may not proceed and Rio might have trouble raising enough cash from asset sales to pay its huge debts take on from the Alcan purchase.
The Financial Times reported that analysts at Barnard Jacobs Mellet in London argued that, if commodity prices fell quickly to the marginal cost of production, Rio would struggle to pay down its $US42 billion of debt and would risk breaching banking covenants next year.
Overall the Footsie had its third-sharpest fall on record on Friday, losing 8.9% to close down 381.74 points at 3,932.06. The index lost 21.1% for the week, its worst performance since Black Monday in 1987.
In Asia, most benchmark indices in the region fell by at least 7%. Japan's Nikkei 225 closed 9.6% lower at 8,276.43 – the first close below 9,000 for five years and the worst one-day fall since 1987.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng index closed down 7.2%, Australia's ASX200 ended 8.3% lower, Singapore's Straits Times index fell 7.8% while India's Sensex dropped by 7.1%.
Thailand suspended trading temporarily after prices fell 10%, and its benchmark index closed down 8.7%, while Indonesia's stock market remained closed for the third day running.
The crisis claimed its first Japanese financial institution, the unlisted Yamato Life Insurance Co, which crashed with $US2.7 billion in debts.
Singapore said its export-dependent economy had sunk into its first recession in six years, and eased monetary policy by abandoning its strong currency policy.
The CSI 300 Index, which tracks Yuan-denominated A shares listed on China's two exchanges, fell 4.4% on Friday to 1,906.96 at the close. The index fell 15% last week, the worst since the measure was introduced in 2005.
