On Monday oil futures prices rose sharply in New York as fears receded about an economic crisis from the meltdown in the US subprime mortgage market as reported on Yahoo News.

New York's main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in October, advanced 88 cents to close at 71.97 dollars after briefly topping 72 dollars a barrel. That followed a rise of 1.26 dollars on Friday.

John Kilduff at MF Global said the worst fears about the impact of the credit squeeze have begun to ease.

But today all confidence seems to have evaporated as the stock market plunged as investors grew more uneasy about the economy and whether the Federal Reserve will take the steps needed to prevent credit market problems from spreading further. The Dow Jones industrials fell 280 points.

Financial services stocks were among the hardest hit during the session as investors reacted to not only economic reports that could affect the group, but a downgrade of several major players. Merrill Lynch analyst Guy Moszkowski cut ratings on Citigroup Inc., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., and Bear Stearns Cos. due to concerns about earnings.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., the fourth-largest investment house, fell $3.47, or 6 percent, to $54.28. Bear Stearns, the fifth-largest investment bank, fell $3.78, or 3.4 percent, to $108.42. Citigroup Inc. fell $1.65, or 3.5 percent, to $46.14.

At the same time the S&P housing report pushed shares of homebuilders lower. It was reported that U.S. home prices fell 3.2 percent in the second quarter and when home prices fall, owners have a hard time refinancing, which can lead to more defaults and delinquencies.

All this means to me is that, one:
None of the so-called experts know what is going to happen day to day.
Two:
All of Wall Street wants someone else to bail them out of their poor performance--namely the Federal Reserve, which means the ordinary citizen will pay because the value of the dollar will fall again, causing rising prices, creating a need for more borrowing, creating more lending, creating more debt, creating more crisis--should I stop now?
Three:
Investors spend too much time following the herd and ignoring the facts.