quote:

A instant drop in the markets around 12:10est on November 17th is the result of a freeze in dollar liquidity worldwide.  Originally beginning in the commodity markets earlier today, the selloff moved quickly and sharply to the equity markets as indicators show a complete freeze in dollar swaps.

Just two charts confirming that we have entered a complete USD liquidity lock up, and that the global coordinated USD swap line rescue operation will be launched any minute: both the US FRA-OIS and the EUR Basis Swap are at multi year extremes. The entire dollar funding market is now at levels not seen since the Lehman collapse and is effectively frozen. Only this time it is much, much worse as never before has the global central bank cadre been assumed and implied to be backstopping the global liquidity cascade. - Zerohedge

The selloff began first with news that the European ESFS would not be backstopping Italy, and this escalated to the Euro/USD swaps.

quote:

An absolute freeze in the reserve currency is what led to the government TARP and Federal Reserve bailouts of 2008.  However, the global markets never fully recovered their debt obligations, and this time, the central banks are out of ammunition to deal with a much bigger crisis.  Expect the ECB and the Fed to be left with no choice but to do a full out monetization and money printing to alleviate the stress and add liquidity to the markets.