Before yesterday's opening bell, a Wall Street trader was quoted as “wondering this morning if this was going to be one of those historic days you read about 20 years from now.”

It's enough to be reading about it today. A bad day for Bank of America and Wachovia, a tepid day for Apple, an emergency shot of adrenaline from the Fed.

The Prince Charles hologram briefly appeared in my office, urging renewable energy investment. Camilla, watch out, the goose is loose.

And what a dizzying, repercussive day in the world markets, with volatility and rebounds in every corner.

Blood in the streets, or more fear than fact? “I don’t think it’s warranted by the fundamentals,” one strategist assured the NYT. “The resilience of the global economy in the face of a credit crunch has been impressive.”

That may be, but as the irrational exuberance slips into irrational fear, it could be the professionals, and not your average investor, reaching for that panic button.

“What you see is not a panic of the public. This is a panic of the sophisticated,” warns gold trader and financial blogger James Sinclair, adding that “this will have a tremendous impact on the public. In the end, this will hit Joe Sixpack. It’s very serious, and drastic emergency economic action is needed.”

Sinclair also introduces a new worry into the increasingly global discussion--derivatives.

"The derivative dealers have killed us all to some degree," he blogs. "Now the consortium of US and European central banks will have to blast untold amounts of liquidity into the world market or witness here and now a financial meltdown of hundreds of trillions of dollars worth of derelict OTC derivatives."

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