The US Federal Reserve galloped to the rescue to try and ease the credit lock up, not to bail out firms or boost equities markets.
But while markets rebounded Friday overseas and prices surged, don't think the problem has been resolved, eased or whatever.
It hasn't and the next move is up to the private sector; the banks and others in the interbank and commercial paper markets.
If they accept the Fed's invitation to resume business and start lending and making money in markets again, with the Fed's money, the situation will stabilise.
If they don't, or if they hold out or are slow (for example try and force a general cut in interest rates) then there will be more volatility.
The Fed has done its bit: a major policy switch because it suddenly realised the threat to the short term money markets was becoming a threat to the wider US economy because a question of credit was moving to become a question of solvency.
And everyone in finance in the US had the problem company picked out and was watching its every move.
Friday's move by the Fed to cut its discount rate by 0.5% to 5.75%, extend repayment from overnight, to 30 days and expand the types of securities it will buy will hopefully add some much needed confidence and 'grease' to the interbank and commercial paper markets which have been frozen for more than a week by lenders big and small refusing to deal with each other.
The Fed said it would accept even home mortgages and 'related assets': that, along with the cut in the discount rate, was the big message to the markets and participants.
That means a wider group of institutions can access the discount window.
The fact that the Fed would accept dodgy mortgages and associated credit securities such as CDOs (Collaterised Debt Obligations) was designed to send the strongest possible message that the Fed would stand as the lender of last resort to anyone.
The Fed cut the discount rate simply to show to the likes of big banks, corporates and others, that there would be a back up if they wanted to lend, a lender of last resort in place.
The discount window had been open for over a week after the Fed, along with central banks in Europe, Australia, Japan and Canada, pumped hundreds of billions of dollars of cash into the interbank market to try and stop it from freezing.
That was in vain, because the money did not convince lenders and others to continue lending and rolling over commercial paper.
We saw that with Rams Home Loans in Australia, which found it could not rollover $6.17 billion, a Canadian finance company called Coventree which couldn't roll its short-term debt, plus 16 other Canadian finance groups, and America's biggest mortgage group, Countrywide Financial Services.
All three were forced to access emergency standby credit lines (Rams was $A1 billion, Countrywide $US11 billion or more, Coventree around $C600 million) to keep going.
The trio and others will now start testing the market to see if they can rollover the short-terms loans they were denied last week. If they can find new finance, even at penalty rates, it will go a long way to convincing others that the credit lockout is easing.
Failure to refinance in the next couple of weeks by the trio (it doesn't have to be all, just a significant amount of money) or other borrowers dependent on short-term commercial paper markets (or bank bills here) will signal that the situation has worsened and lenders are ignoring the move by the Fed.
Do not take the market performance (where the Share Price Index in Australia is saying the ASX 200 will bounce by 200 points today) as a sign the problem is over, or that the broader economic conditions are convincing investors to invest.
They are nothing but reactions to what will be happening in the interbank and short-term commercial paper markets.
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Here are the three Fed statements issued on Friday, firstly from the Open Markets Committee:
"Financial market conditions have deteriorated, and tighter credit conditions and increased uncertainty have the potential to restrain economic growth going forward.
"In these circumstances, although recent data suggest that the economy has continued to expand at a moderate pace, the Federal Open Market Committee judges that the downside risks to growth have increased appreciably.
"The Committee is monitoring the situation and is prepared to act as needed to mitigate the adverse effects on the economy arising from the disruptions in financial markets."
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"To promote the restoration of orderly conditions in financial markets, the Federal Reserve Board approved temporary changes to its primary credit discount window facility.
"The Board approved a 50 basis point reduction in the primary credit rate to 5-3/4 percent, to narrow the spread between the primary credit rate and the Federal Open Market Committee's target federal funds rate to 50 basis points.
"The Board is also announcing a change to the Reserve Banks' usual practices to allow the provision of term financing for as long as 30 days, renewable by the borrower.
These changes will remain in place until the Federal Reserve determines that market liquidity has improved materially. These changes are designed to provide depositories with greater assurance about the cost and availability of funding.
"The Federal Reserve will continue to accept a broad range of collateral for discount window loans, including home mortgages and related assets. Existing collateral margins will be maintained."
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"The Federal Reserve will provide reserves as necessary through open market operations to promote trading in the federal funds market at rates close to the Federal Open
