Dow in Freefall as Lehman Goes Bust

It's going to be a bad day on Wall Street:

Sept. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., the fourth-largest U.S. investment bank, succumbed to the subprime mortgage crisis it helped create in the biggest bankruptcy filing in history.

The 158-year-old firm, which survived railroad bankruptcies of the 1800s, the Great Depression in the 1930s and the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management a decade ago, filed a Chapter 11 petition with U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan today. The collapse of Lehman, which listed more than $613 billion of debt, dwarfs WorldCom Inc.'s insolvency in 2002 and Drexel Burnham Lambert's failure in 1990.

Within moments of opening the Dow was down over 300 points. There are safety mechanisms that will halt trading at some point to slow things down, but this could be the new Black Monday.
UPDATE: Dow is staggering back. The early panic seems to be subsiding. Maybe this is why:

Wall Street Seeks Disaster Declaration, FEMA Help

UPDATE 2: Fell again - down 504 on the day. At the same time Bank of America is purchasing Merrill Lynch. One of my Facebook friends wonders of the new firm will be called "Lynch America".