Friday, September 14, 2007

Rock, Paper, Scissored

Sorry.
I seem to be channeling the Post.
This, From the BBC:
With no one knowing yet how many banks have toxic loans festering on their books and the need for some to hold reserves to cover any bad debts, commercial paper has dried up.

From the Scotsman:
But high volumes of commercial paper, short-term debt used to fund longer term investments, are due to be refinanced on Monday, making this a critical week for markets where the usual heavy flows of interbank lending have dried up, driving up market interest rates.

From MarketWatch:
...The U.K. FTSE 100 (UK:UKX: news, chart, profile) dropped 2.1% at 6,230.70, with banks pacing the declines on the move by Northern Rock to get emergency funding.

Shares of Northern Rock (UK:NRK: news, chart, profile) dropped 26%, while other U.K. lenders also declined, such as Alliance & Leicester (UK:AL: news, chart, profile) , which fell 7.7%, and Bradford & Bingley (UK:BB.: news, chart, profile) , which slipped 8.8%.