I can absolutely guarantee that there won’t be a panic on Monday in one financial centre: Madrid. The markets are closed for a national public holiday, the Día de la Hispanidad. If governments round the world need more time to draw up a convincing rescue package, why not join Spain’s celebration? The nervous wrecks on the trading floors would be better occupied going fishing.
We need financial markets, but not 24/7. The ideal would I think be to have them run for an hour on Fridays, with completely automated Walrasian tâtonnement and order matching. The traders whose animal spirits just confuse things with noise, bubbles and panics can go back to selling fruit and veg.
Update
Generally a report that Silvio Berlusconi is in favour of something (for half an hour anyway) would be enough to rule it out, but these are not normal times.
