Credit Fears Widening
Global markets have been rattled by worries over financial institutions' exposure to bad credit in the US sub-prime mortgage market.
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The European Central Bank injected cash into the money market for a second day, as did other central banks worldwide.
The ECB move was to "assure orderly conditions in the euro money markets".
The bank injected 61.05 bn euros (£41.65bn; $84.2bn) into the eurozone money markets on Friday.
Japan's central bank had earlier pumped one trillion yen ($8.5bn; £4.2bn) into the financial system to boost liquidity.
How long the central banks can continue to pump cash in to keep the markets from collapsing is debatable, and the cash infusions themselves can cause more inflation. Add to the sub-prime mess the jitters over the unregulated hedge fund market, throw in the growing spat between the US and China over currency valuation, and the growing push for oil-producing countries like Russia to stop selling their oil in dollars but instead demanding euros, and you can begin to see why this crash is going to be ugly.
Too many negative factors converging at once.
