No one likes a chicken little, even when the sky really is falling

So BNP Paribas SA, a French bank (actually, one of the largest banks in France), froze three funds that invested heavily in U.S. subprime CDOs (I'm guessing here. They said they could not value the subprime market). For those who don't know what they are, a CDO is a collateralized debt obligation consisting of a bundle of debts, in this case, subprime mortgages, which are themselves bundles of individual mortgages. What's causing the panic is that these bundles of bundles are essentially worthless because in the go-go days of 2005-2007, when people in California, Las Vegas, and Florida were lining up at realtors to buy a home with no money down in the hopes of flipping it for a substantial profit a week later, no one remembered that what goes up must come down, and that when it did come down, those holding the bags of hot potatoes would have to pay.

This, combined with the unwinding of the Yen carry-trade (a system of making money by borrowing funds from a country with a low interest rate and putting the money in higher interest vehicles in another) is causing a tightening of liquidity in the markets. Liquidity is a measure of how easy it is to buy and sell stocks for a profit, and convert it to cash. Liquidity is tightened when you can't sell for as much of a profit, because no one wants to sell for a loss, so you have to hold and wait for your positions to go up again, only, this takes time, and time is the enemy of liquidity.

So this economic environment is limiting the profits and sustainability of hedge funds and hedge fund profits. The Dow went down over 350 (almost 3%) today and the Nikkei is already down over 350 (2%).

Cramer had a fit, the Fed added a sentence to their statement that said they recognised that there is a credit problem, but they wouldn't change the rates, but followed the European Central Bank by adding money to the market. The Bank of Japan, not to be left out, just joined in.

Also, if that weren't the worst of it, Countrywide Financial (CFC), which was touted as being able to survive this row, has announced that the mortgage situation is "unprecedented." They were down 12% in the aftermarket. Lord only knows what will happen tomorrow.

Sources:
Dow Sinks 387 on Renewed Credit Concerns
Countrywide: Mortgage market 'unprecedented'
Japanese Stocks Drop on Concern Subprime Losses Will Spread
BNP Paribas Freezes Funds as Loan Losses Roil Markets (Update5)
Bank of Japan Adds Biggest Amount of Funds Since June (Update1)