From Spiegel…

On Sept. 16, Moscow’s largest stock exchange, MICEX, fell by a jaw-dropping 17.5 percent, the largest one-day loss in a decade, while the rival RTS exchange was down by 11.5 percent.

The free fall continued on Sept. 17, causing Russia’s stock market regulator to suspend trading on both exchanges. The Russian central bank pumped a record $14.1 billion into the financial system, while the Finance Ministry said it would provide $44.9 billion in short-term loans to the country’s biggest banks.

Compared with the gyrations in Moscow, the 5 percent declines in other global markets look pretty mild. What’s more, the collapse in Russia is not simply a knee-jerk response to bad news elsewhere. Well before this week’s chaos on Wall Street, the Russian stock market was imploding. Since the beginning of July, the RTS has lost 64 percent of its value, equivalent to some three-quarters of a trillion dollars.

There are people out there trying to calm people down. Calculated Risk just wrote a post arguing that most of the recent disasters were really positive steps towards fixing the underlying problems. Other people have argued that all the big shoes have dropped. But question facing the financial markets is “Do you feel lucky punk?”

It is tough to take risks when faced with that kind of question.

From Blomberg…..

The ruble-denominated Micex Stock Exchange suspended trading indefinitely at 12:10 p.m. after its index erased a 7.6 percent gain and plunged as much as 10 percent within an hour. The benchmark fell 17 percent yesterday, the biggest drop since Bloomberg started tracking the gauge in May 2001. The dollar- denominated RTS halted trading after similar declines.

The government yesterday injected $20 billion into the interbank lending market via central bank and Finance Ministry auctions in a bid to contain soaring borrowing rates as credit dried up in the wake of the Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. bankruptcy. The one-day MosPrime overnight rate, a gauge for monitoring liquidity demand, leapt 25 basis points to a record 11.08 percent today.

The Finance Ministry attempted to stop the selloff by offering 1.13 trillion rubles ($44 billion) of budget funds to the country’s three biggest banks, OAO Sberbank, VTB Group and OAO Gazprombank, for at least three months. That measure came as KIT Finance, a Russian brokerage, said it’s in talks to find a buyer after failing to meet some financial obligations related to repurchase agreements.

Bond Market `Closed’

“The bond market remains effectively closed and banks are reluctant to lend to one another,” said Julian Rimmer, head of sales trading at UralSib Financial Corp. in London. “The problems experienced by KIT Finance have heightened counterparty risk and reduced liquidity further.”

From Brad Setser….

The 3 month Treasury bill now yields nothing. The Treasury though will give you your money back …

The fall in Treasury yields came even as the US government indicated that it was going to issue a lot of bills and bonds to help the Fed grow its balance sheet.

When Brad Seter says the 3 month Treasury now yields nothing he really means less then nothing. If you adjusted inflation short term treasury bills have not had a real yield for a while. But now you might as well stick the money under your mattress rather then loan it to the Feds.

But the real story is in the last line. To say that the Fed is going to grow its balance sheet is just another way of saying that it is going to print money. The Naked Capitalist has more.

From Reuters…

The Federal Reserve is negotiating a $85-90 billion secured bridge loan for American International Group Inc., according to a report on CNBC.

Shareholders would be severely diluted by the bailout that involves the bridge loan. The government would receive AIG warrants for most of its equity in the bailout being negotiated. CNBC said the deal would give AIG incentive to sell its assets quickly to help pay off the bridge loan.

Edit: Its going to happen.

From the Financial Times…

Interbank money market rates climbed to 11 per cent, their highest since a mini-banking crisis in summer 2004.

Chris Weafer, chief strategist at Uralsib investment bank: “We’re in completely uncharted territory where the prevailing emotion is of fear and numbnes. No one knows where this could stop”.

Alexei Kudrin, finance minister, insisted that the financial system was not in a systemic crisis but the central bank injected a record $14.16bn in one-day funds into the money market.

The finance ministry also placed an additional R150bn ($5.8bn) in one-month deposits into the banking system. Konstantin Korishchenko, central bank deputy, told Russian news agencies that the bank and the finance ministry could provide a total of $117.6bn in liquidity to the banking sector.

But market players said banks were ceasing to lend to second and third-tier companies and brokers were pulling credit lines. KIT Finance, big Moscow investment house confirmed rumours that it had been unable to make payment on a series of short-term loans.

From Brad Setser…..

UPDATE: John Jansen reports Morgan Stanley’s credit spread has widened significantly and LIBOR is way way up. LIBOR may now be the rate that banks don’t lend to each other at, but the banks do need funding.

UPDATE 2: AIG’s bonds are also trading at Argentina-in-default levels, 33 cents on the dollar.

UPDATE 3: The New York Times suggests that if AIG doesn’t get federal money, it will fail on Wednesday. That is a stark choice: a two day no bailout policy, or the second failure of a large financial institution in a week.

From Naked Capitalism…

The numbers and the measures become more and more extreme. For AIG to get permission from regulators to move $20 billion in capital from its subs to the holding company and have significant asset disposals teed up wasn’t sufficient to shore up the embattled insurer., The Fed has reportedly convened yet another emergency session to see if the usual suspects might be able to somehow aid the embattled insurer. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Fed has leaned on Goldman and JP Morgan for an emergency $70-$75 billion loan as well.

From The Deal Breaker (H/T Marginal Revolution) ….

$$$ Bank of America is buying Merrill, the WSJ reports. The deal values the company at $44 billion, or $29 per share, a significant premium from Friday’s market price. Everyone is perplexed by the premium. But if it is, as some have reported, an all stock deal and BofA shares take a significant hit in the wake of the news, the final price and the premium could be much lower.

Update: CNBC’s Charlie Gasparino says the government forced Merrill to sell itself.

$$$ On CNBC they are saying that AIG has asked the Federal Reserve for some kind of emergency bridge loans. Can the Fed lend to an insurance company?

$$$ Federal Reserve is dramatically expanding its emergency lending program. It’s now going to take all sorts of collateral, including equity.