Gordon, Alastair, Mervyn and FSA boss Lord Adair are meeting at 5pm today to figure out their plan to stabilise markets. The FT is pointing the finger at Pesto for bank shares collapsing today. The banks concerned have denied his story, it appears his report was the result of a briefing about possible plans. There is real anger in the City because of his reporting. Peston has single-handedly inflamed the situation.

The FT’s Alphaville blog calls him “Pesto-Wire” and mocks him for replacing the official Regulatory News Service. He is a bit of a market menace because his reports are perceived as based on sources in 10 & 11 Downing Street. So he is a market mover. Guido has thousands of readers in the City and this email is typical of the feeling towards him in the Square Mile:

UPDATE : RBS in a terse statement say “contrary to press speculation, RBS did not make a request to the Government for capital.” Pesto on the World at One basically shrugged his shoulders when Martha said to him “presumably they mean you”. Carnage in the markets, the banking system further destabilised, billions change hands and all Pesto can say is “ooops”.

No short-sellers were involved this morning. Yet Gordon and Darling said they were banning short selling to protect financial institutions (Cable, who should know better, cheered this on). Guido and most objective market observers said it was irrelevant. Today’s market action proves the point. QED

This is what could happen to the pound if the Treasury decides to print cash to bail out collapsing banks. The Icelandic Króna has lost 40% in value in three months. The Icelandic Króna is not the Great British Pound, the UK economy is far larger and hopefully stronger. Little Iceland could go bust and end up begging the IMF, a humiliation suffered by Britain under the last Labour government. Nothing, however, is impossible.

The FT reports some good news; $500 billion in derivatives contracts related to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were settled yesterday. Friday, 17 October, sees $400 billion of Lehman Credit Default Swaps (CDS) come due for settlement. If this goes through without mishap, market liquidity could improve as fears of systemic failure recede and the biggest ever stress test for derivatives contracts passes.

If…

As the markets tank the question is how low can we go? There is quite simply no immediate floor for the FTSE 100, after 4500 the next level is the January 2003 level of 3600, a drop of some 20%. Think that is impossible? Stocks are down more than 20% since the beginning of the year.

So it isn’t hard to see that kind of market capitulation happening. In the tech bust of 1999-2000 many stocks fell 90%. Some bank stocks have already dropped 90%. There is nothing government can do to alter the reality and this has to play out. Tokyo had near zero interest rates for the best part of a decade (sorry Vince that was no panacea). The liquidity problem is/was a precursor to the solvency problem. Governments can flood markets with liquidity but that can’t fix insolvency. This is going to be painful.

Politicians who claim to have solutions to the credit crunch are infantalising the electorate. The best they can do is ameliorate the problems. They can’t alter the underlying reality. Over-priced assets are crashing and bringing down the banks – not all – some like HSBC are relatively unscathed. There are pluses as well, if you are in your twenties you will have a better chance of getting on the property ladder now…

The Senate Banking Committee is the ultimate legislative oversight for U.S. financial regulation. The members of the committee have almost all had donations from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Now they are to decide on bail-out terms?

Incidentally Guido bailed out of all his speculative positions in the early hours of Wednesday morning when it hit the wires that Warren Buffet was taking a $5 billion stake in Goldmans, given his reputation Guido felt Buffet might single-handedly turn market sentiment. That combined with the impossibility of predicting how and when the politicians would go made the markets too random for Guido. Baby Fawkes is unwell and between the 24/7 currency markets and her, the lack of sleep was too draining.

Hat-tip : LFAT

Gold jumped some $30 on the back of fear. If the U.S. government is going to bail out the banks people realised it was time to bail out of U.S. dollars, bonds and stocks. Guido took profit on the spike, probably far too soon. You don’t go broke taking profits too soon though. Gold carried on through $900 without Guido for the ride.

The euro jumped nearly 2.5% or some 300 pips, biggest move ever. Took profit on that and switched to shorting the dollar against sterling on the possibly irrational idea that other speculators will start to eye a $2 pound and the move against the dollar was not as violent as it was vis-a-vis the euro. The position is a little underwater.

Just to prove what an evil speculator Guido is he shorted the FTSE hard. Am still running the short and marked to market am up some 21.5% overall on the day. A profit or loss of that magnitude in a day signals too much leverage in too volatile a market. Strangely traders never mind violent P&L swings when they are to the plus side. Friday’s broad stock market gains evaporated, oil hit $125 a barrel. Tomorrow can’t be this volatile, can it?

The FT’s Alphaville blog (“The Site That Supports our Shorts”) highlights a Downing Street petition to criminalise consenting behaviour between capitalists. They want to criminalise short selling. Some trade union boss told the Labour Party conference he wants to tax us into extinction. Tax us to the Bahamas more likely.

Guido can’t resist and is now actively trading once again in financial markets, attracted by the blood on the streets of New York and London. The approach is old fashioned, none of that quantitative analysis using super-computers that you need to lose billions. Just two or three positions on the go at any one time, mainly restricted to financial futures, foreign exchange and commodities rather than individual stocks. Have an aversion to trading stocks because insiders (or friends of Robert Peston) can kill you if you are leveraged – given portfolio leverage varies from none to 20 times – it is essential to employ stop losses. Will report how the portfolio is doing in percentage terms (in the right hand column) as of Tokyo market opening this morning. Because of the leverage employed swings of 20% are not unheard of – unfortunately that is usually on a bad day. Mark to market since this morning’s open is +4% largely on the back of another FTSE short .

Will probably keep the reporting going until this period of extreme disequilibrum in the markets is over or the portfolio is down 50% or up 100%. It will be an interesting experiment to keep a public trading diary.