margin calls 追加証拠金、追証

As prices fall, the value of the collateral used as security for loans declines as well, provoking margin calls. Holders of securities must sell them at distressed prices to meet the minimum cash or capital requirements, and such selling often causes the market to overshoot in the opposite direction.


stunned into inactivity

Even the politicians have been stunned into inactivity. Congress probably will not pass new financial legislation this year, admitted Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, because “no one knows what to do.”