by Calculated Risk on 9/09/2011 04:07:00 PM

• S&P off 31+, Dow off 300+. Graph below ...

• From economist Tom Lawler: "[Based on incoming data] I’m upping my estimate for August existing home sales (as estimated by the NAR) to a SAAR of 4.91 million."

• From the WSJ: Economic, Debt Worries Mount in Euro Zone

The unexpected departure of European Central Bank chief economist Jürgen Stark intensified investors' worries about the euro-zone financial crisis Friday and unleashed a broad pullback from risk in European financial markets, sinking the euro to its lowest level in more than six months.

Stark was an inflation hawk and opposed all EU bailouts and ECB bond buying.

• Another MERS court victory, this time at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals (ht Mish). From the opinion:

The district court properly dismissed the plaintiffs’ First Amended Complaint without leave to amend. The plaintiffs’ claims that focus on the operation of the MERS system ultimately fail because the plaintiffs have not shown that the alleged illegalities associated with the MERS system injured them or violated state law. As part of their fraud claim, the plaintiffs have not shown that they detrimentally relied upon any misrepresentations about MERS’s role in their loans. Further, even if we were to accept the plaintiffs’ contention that MERS is a sham beneficiary and the note is split from the deed in the MERS system, it does not follow that any attempt to foreclose after the plaintiffs defaulted on their loans is necessarily “wrongful.” The plaintiffs’ claims against their original lenders fail because they have not stated a basis for equitable tolling or estoppel of the statutes of limitations on their TILA and Arizona Consumer Fraud Act claims, and have not identified extreme and outrageous conduct in support of their claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Thus, we AFFIRM the decision of the district court.

MERS is the Mortgage Electronic Registration System, and some people argued that MERS would lead to the total collapse of Western Civilization or something ... I've argued for years that those fear were way overblown.

• This graph (click on graph for larger image) from Doug Short shows the wild market swings over the last few weeks.