Fed Cuts 3/4 pts.

March 18, 2008: The street wanted a full percentage point rate cut but the Fed only gave them 3/4, Wall St. cheered anyway with the Dow closing up over 400 points. The Nasdaq and the S&P 500 vaulted 4.2%. Volume was slightly lower on the NYSE spoiling a follow-through day for the DOW. The pundits on CNBC are cheering the end of the credit crisis. I think we may be just beginning.

Oil got back all of yesterday’s losses and was up 3.7% to $109.42. Gold closed up $1.70 to $1004.30. Banks and brokers rallied hard. Lehman Bros. got back yesterday’s massive losses and closed up over 43%. FC Stone also got back its massive losses closing up over 44%.

If the Federal Reserve plans to bail out every major financial institution that’s in trouble this could well run into the trillions of dollars. With real estate prices collapsing 20% since this summer in southern California and sizable losses in other ‘bubble’ areas like Florida, Nevada, Arizona, etc., this is threatening to take down the financial system as we know it.

The Fed is also signaling that it will do what ever it takes and will add more liquidity if needed. Will this ‘tsunami of liquidity’ be enough to help the $11 trillion US mortgage market? Can it save scores of shaky banks, brokerages and over-leveraged hedge-funds like Carlyle Capital ($21 billion fund who used 32:1 leverage!) from imploding?

CRAMER: “BEAR STEARNS IS NOT IN TROUBLE”

The Infamous Jim Cramer Meltdown

This is timeless! Cramer has a full and complete meltdown on CNBC as he begs Ben Bernanke to cut interest rates. Seems like Jim is still carrying lots of baggage from his failed hedge fund.

Cramer exposes the corruption on Wall St. & the banking sector.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/22706231 A MUST SEE VIDEO

Why isn’t the Securities and Exchange Commission getting more involved in the whole banking sector writedown situation? Especially since the numbers are likely to get worse, not better? That’s what Jim Cramer, CNBC’s resident stock guru, wants to know.

“It’s all fiction!” he declared during a forceful exchange (see it in full in the accompanying video) on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

“How can we have these levels of fiction in financials after Sarbanes-Oxley? How do people get away with this? How do they live with themselves?”

Cramer made his comments while reviewing results from Merrill. But his real consternation surrounded the insurers who cover banking investments. Some of those insurers haven’t come clean about their liabilities, Cramer speculated. Eventually they will, and then the “fiction” will disappear, he said.

The banking sector and its related industries are all too chummy, Cramer accused. That led the numbers related to mortgage investments — investments that are currently souring — to break from reality.

“I think the financial guys all belong to the same club and they got to protect each other,” he said.

Worse, those executives behind the current credit crunch are unlikely to get any punishment for their mistakes and disingenuousness about their numbers, Cramer opined.

“I’m fed up with it. The American people should be fed up with it. And the SEC should be fed up with it,” Cramer said.