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We'll be updating throughout the morning.
10:49: During a White House press briefing, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson says "Our banking system is a safe and a sound one" and that "The American people can be very confident about their accounts."
10:15: Shares of AIG are at least stabilizing after NY Gov. David A. Paterson said the state would allow the big insurance company to lend itself $20 billion to bolster capital. AIG is still believed to be talking to the Fed about an emergency bridge loan. Meanwhile, CNBC now says that Buffett is no longer talking to AIG. Dow is down 258 points.
9:17: AIG is shaping up to be the big story. The stock is down around 60 percent this morning amid growing concerns about its ability to hang on. There are ongoing reports that AIG is talking to Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway.
8:33: The Dow is back down about 250 points.
8:28: WSJ's David Gaffen points out the widening spread between short-term securities and long-term securities. The difference between a three-month Treasury bill yield and 10-year note yield is 2.70 percent, a substantial difference from Friday when the difference was about two percentage points. That could be a good thing for the financial institutions that are trying to get short-term funding.
7:54: So far the roof has not caved in. The Dow is off its lows, down only 186 points. Among the Dow components, the non-financials are holding up. Disney, Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson and Intel are all down less than one percent.
7:24: Lewis says he doesn't see "the clouds parting" in 2009. Thain says that size will be important.
7:21: NYT columnist Floyd Norris talks to Robert Bruner, dean of the University of Virginia business school. “What we have seen in all previous crises is that the bottom is marked by the collapse or rescue of major institutions that were thought to be beyond the reach of the crisis," Bruner says. "If this crises follows that, the events of the past 10 days may mark the nadir.” But he only gave Norris 50-50 odds that this is the bottom.
7:12: Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis says at a news conference that the purchase of Merrill Lynch is the "opportunity of a lifetime." Merrill CEO John Thain, also appearing, says conversations between the two companies didn't begin until Saturday morning. Dow is down 298 points.
6:39: Dow is down over 300 points after the first 10 minutes of trading. The CNBC folks are saying it could be worse.
Mark Lacter created the LA Biz Observed blog in 2006. He posted
until the day before his death on Nov. 13, 2013.