A wild Friday night in subprime land

The late breaking news out of New Century Financial, the third-largest subprime lender, and Fremont General, the fifth largest, is staggering. An FDIC cease and desist order at Fremont calling for it to cut back on subprime lending. A criminal probe into securities trading at New Century. An SEC filing saying that if New Century can't obtain waivers from its lenders, it could threaten the company's status as a going concern. Oh, and S&P also cut New Century's counterparty credit and debt ratings. Things are getting really ugly, really fast, just as I've been warning people to expect for months and months and months.