A px of mine boasted that with his account, he had up to 400-1 leverage. Stupid numbers like that are responsible for these fiascos as well. He says that with 10k in his account, he can play as if he had 4M dollars. Now he is a smaller day trader but imagine someone that takes 10M dollars, he is now playing with 4Billion and that is part of the reason we see stupid swings in prices and valuation. A law should be passed limiting the leveraging aloud. This is another reason these markets are dangerous. Whole companies can be brought down because of a few traders. How many jobs were lost at Lehman's?? At Merryl?? These traders make billions for themselves and their company but when things go wrong, they want the government to step in and wipe their losses. This rescue package of 700B is not a done deal IMO. People will get involved and with elections around the corner, it may not be easy to convince the masses of the necessity of it. The fact the George Bush is asking for quick passage of this bill may make people even more skeptical. This is a huge play for the government and it seems like they want no oversight on this 700B!!! How this plays out will have profound, long term implications for the US and to a lesser extent Canada and the world.

Glorieux