With an hour until the opening bell things are shaping up for a bad day. Dow futures are already off 500 points. Other news:

– Japan’s Nikkei stock closed 5.7% down – Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index down 8.7%
– Britain’s FTSE 100 fell 0.69 percent,
– Germany’s DAX index lost 2.55 percent and
– France’s CAC-40 fell 1.39 percent.

And while typing this MSNBC just reported that the fed had an emergency meeting and decided to cut a key interest rate by 3/4 of a point.