Liveblogging This Firestorm

9:45 am: Now there's talk of another rate cut coming at the meeting at the end of the month. There are still decent earnings out there. Precision Castparts (PCP) just beat by a penny.

9:38 am EST: Dow off 440 or thereaobuts. David S. Products proffers:

You might include the 'theoretical' use of the f-bomb in the Fed statement: "The Committee expects inflation to moderate in coming quarters, but it will be necessary to continue to monitor inflation developments carefully." (Translation: F*ck inflation)

9:29 am EST: Capitulation 3, Resilient 0. OK, you buy ’em with your money.

9:19 am EST: Oh, and I wish I’d been smart enough to cover my hedges — DDM and QID (double long Dow and Nazz, respectively) — Friday. But they help me sleep better, because any decent bear market features those fast, furious and prone to failure ((c) John Hussman) rallies.

9:04 am EST: Looking at my own book, I’ve got two trades that I want to get down. Buy SMN (the double inverse basic materials ProShares) and double-down on my short IYT position; I won’t be doing either of those on the open. I may also cover some shorts, depending on how the day progresses. They’re selling the rate cut...quelle surpris. Dow futures now down almost 500 points again.

8:58 am EST: I wonder if Toby from Citigrope now has the analytical basis for cutting his 1675 target for the S&P 500. Come to think of it, I wonder if he still has a job?

8:48 am EST: Two words I would have expected to hear are mising in action. Capitulation. Resilience. So far.

8:45 am EST: BAC laid an egg. That helped.

8:38 am EST: Shocking (sarcasm). Nobody’s mentioning that it’s a solvency problem, not a liquidity problem. Speaking of which, Reuters reported late Friday that Dubai Holding LLC, owned by the Emir of Dubai, has acquired more than half of the publicly-traded shares of New York-based hedge fund Och-Ziff Capital Management.

8:20 am EST: Fred Reserve announces 75 bp snip to both target and discount window rates; now at 3.50 and 4.00 respectively. Dow futures reverse about 100 pts in an eye-blink, then another 100. Now down just over 300 pts; Nazz, which had been down more than 100, now down 40.

8:00 am EST: Paulson, not in Davos, is speaking. Dow futures are off around 550, a little worse than when it surfaced around 6:30, but, it should be noted, not far from where they were indicated about the same time yesterday. The Paulson blather in full.