Citi is buying Wachovia because the Fed told Citi it's buying Wachovia.

Citi isn't buying ALL of Wachovia ... buy they aren't announcing that today. Citi isn't buying Wachovia's securities, only its retail banking operation.

The DOW will go down to 8,000 before all is said and done.

As they said in Trading Places, advise our clients to buy at 8,000. Tell them Billy Ray Valentine has set the price.

Ahh ... a voice of reason after coming back to my office and looking at the front page of WSJ.com. Thanks, Karl.

Whether now is a good time to buy depends on whether this is like Black Monday 1987 or Black Thursday 1929. Congress is reconsidering the bill or some alternative, which may have helped prevent the Dow from dropping even more. If they don't come up with some bailout plan, the markets might go down substantially more over the next several days.

In 1987, the stock market bounced back quickly after losing 22.6% of its value in a single day and began its longest period of sustained growth. In 1929, Richard Whitney, the Vice President of the New York Stock Exchange, the Rockefellers and a number of other wealthy individuals tried to restore investor confidence by buying large blocks of stock like Buffett has done with Goldman Sachs. Their efforts, however, failed and the market lost 25% of its value over 4 days. In 1929, the stock market decline was just the beginning of a series of economic problems that lead to the Great Depression and the worst stock market decline in history. Between Oct. 1929 and July 1932, the stock market lost 89% of its value. It did not recoup those losses until 1954.

Are you really sure that the economic fundamentals in the United States are closer to 1987 than 1929 given how leveraged our government, our companies, and our citizens are?

How could now be the time to buy?

Did the bailout bill reform the Community Reinvestment Act? Did it reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Did the bailout bill regulate credit default swaps as the insurance vehicles that they really are?

Did the bailout bill before Congress set limits on how large a company can get, so that we don't have companies that are "too big to fail?"

I'm just a regular voter. I'm not a professor, or an economist, but I read all 110 pages of the Pelosi bailout bill.

I saw a lot of conversation about how $700 billion was going to be handed out. And that's it.

This bill isn't going to solve the problems that led us here. It's only ambition is to hand out more dollars to the very people who've squandered them to start with.

Is now the time to buy?

I think the market is going to go much, much further down, so no, I don't think it's time to buy anything yet.

There are now basically 3 banks in the US. JP Morgan, BoA, and Citi, if you buy enough bad assets maybe you get too big for the government to let you fail...