O Brothers, where art thou?

September 2008 is likely to come to be regarded as one of the grimmest and most volatile months ever experienced by Wall Street and financial markets generally. As dramatic as such an observation may seem, the events of the past month tell their own story. With the collapse of a major dealer, derivatives counterparties have been forced to quickly assess the size of their exposures, unwind trades where possible and find new counterparties with which to replace hedges they had conducted with