A Reminder on the New Circuit-Breakers

My inbox is flooded with “how will the markets react Monday?” emails from investors and media peeps alike.  I feel bad being at such a loss but truthfully, I don’t think there is any way to know – to even have an inkling!  There are too many moving pieces in play.  Europe is mumbling about some kind of monstrous Spanish and Italian bond purchase and some are saying that the S&P downgrade was priced in this week (I say no f***ing way to that, but fine).

Educated guesses range from Relief Rally to End of Days but as I’ve been saying, most people are better off letting the speculators have at it and hugging the sidelines.

Anyway, in case it turns out to be an End of Days type of market, below is a NYSE infograph on how the new circuit-breakers (from June 2010) are set up.  It comes from my friend Bill Singer‘s excellent Street Sweeper column at Forbes:

Anyway, that’s how they’re supposed to work – let’s hope we don’t need ’em.