Source: Adrian Ash, Bullion Vault  10/17/2008
“What we thought was a wall of liquidity, turned out to be a wall of leverage.” – Paul Davies in the FT, quoting “a number of senior bankers…”

WANNA KNOW WHY your stock market shares keep on tumbling, right back to what one Fox news anchor just called “the absolute lows” from the end of last week?

It’s credit – or rather, the lack of it.

The US bail-out, European unity, Gordon Brown’s sainthood, every new mortgage application…all these things now look incredible – quite literally unbelievable – against the stark backdrop of no credit, no leverage today. But nothing lacks credibility like trying to make fast money in finance right now.

Even David Einhorn, the baby-faced card sharp running Greenlight Capital, cost his clients more than 12% of their money last month. And he’s the guy who spotted and bet on Lehman Bros.’s looming collapse 14 months …