Assume the crash position.

U.S.

stock-index futures are pointing to another dark day on Wall Street.

Asian and European markets tumbled. Japanese stocks fell nearly 10

percent. London was down 7 percent, while Frankfurt slid as much as 9

percent.

As the bloodbath spreads, Washington and other governments are explor ing a number of options including temporarily insuring all deposits, as Germany and Ireland have done, backing loans among banks, and pumping cash into banks by buying preferred or common shares.

President Bush will meet on Saturday with finance ministers of the world’s leading industrial nations in an effort to find a global response to the financial crisis. The president will speak this morning.

Despite the rumblings of additional government intervention, fear continues to grip the credit markets. The three-month dollar Libor, or the London interbank offered rate, climbed to 4.82 percent,

Here are today’s flash points:

General Electric said third-quarter earnings fell, matching expectations since its recent profit warning. The absence of bad surprises may help steady the market today.

Credit default swaps on Lehman Brothers debt, a kind of insurance, are settled in an auction today. Banks and others that issued the swaps are looking at losses of as much as 90 percent.

Contracts with a nominal value of as much as $400 billion will be auctioned.

Is Morgan Stanley the next to fall?

Its shares are falling and the cost of insuring its debt is rising on concerns that a $9 billion of infusion of capital from the Japanese bank Mitsubishi UFJ may not materialize, because of the falling stock price and the slump in Japanese stocks. Moody’s Investors Service, meanwhile, has said it may lower its rating on Morgan’s long-term credit “based upon its expectation that an extended downturn in global capital market activity will reduce Morgan Stanley's revenue and profit potential in 2009, and perhaps beyond.”

General Motors says it is facing “unprecedented challenges” but that a bankruptcy filing is not an option.

Another reason to worry? Rebecca Quick on CNBC this morning said the channel was working to show 11 talking heads on the screen, up from 9 and 10

this week as stocks plunged.

We hope that was a joke.

By Portfolio Staff

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