Confidence restored! (/snark)

By the Fault:

Today is an ugly ugly day on the world’s financial markets. As of this hour, London’s FTSE 100 is off 5.36% while the DJ Euro Stoxx 50 index, a barometer of euro zone blue chips, fell 4 percent. The DAX was down 5.5% in Frankfurt and the Paris bourse CAC-40 lost 5.9%. Financial markets were broadly off in India, Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, Taiwan and Korea. The US index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, opened down 300 points off about 3.0%. The broader market index, the S&P 500, fell 41 points or about 3.7%.