Friday's market reports:

Telegraph
The Times
The Times (Need to know)
FT
The Guardian
The Independent
This is Money

Panic selling by hedge funds has emerged as the hidden cause of the contagion spreading through the global financial system.

"In the last week people have had to meet margin calls by selling equity positions. The quant strats [quantitative funds] have been hit hardest and it's become a bit of a perfect storm. Prime brokerages are increasing margin requirements so you have a self--fulfilling prophecy and spiral down," said one senior banker.

"The black boxes [funds' computerised investment strategies] are all similar. They are getting completely crushed," added another.

It has also emerged that many funds had invested in the same companies, causing prices in otherwise unconnected companies to fall dramatically.

Hedge fund panic was behind global stock markets collapse

Among Warren Buffett's many timeless market aphorisms, one has stuck in my mind as particularly apt this weekend: "It's only when the tide goes out that you get to see who's been swimming with their trunks off."

Don't plunge back in until Warren says it's safe

CENTRAL BANKS are preparing to launch fresh interventions in money markets this week to avert a full-blown credit crisis after warnings by American analysts that up to $300 billion (148 billion) of loans could be at risk.

Rescue plan to stem market crisis

From their position high in the Eurotower, the skyscraper headquarters of the European Central Bank (ECB) in the heart of Frankfurt, staff keep a close eye on what is happening in the money markets around Europe. On Thursday, the market-operations division noticed that something very unusual was going on. Liquidity appeared to have dried up, and interest rates were soaring.

Panic on Wall Street

Investors are braced for another white-knuckle ride on the markets this week as the fallout from the American sub-prime mortgage crunch starts to claim fresh victims.

US loan crisis set to claim fresh victims

Share prices in freefall, slaughter in Surrey, flood damage costed in the billions, a slowing housing market and a subdued high street. And yet amid all this gloom there is talk of a sixth interest rate rise in 13 months.

Why yet another rise in interest rates will slaughter us