This is (and isn't) like 2008

The past 24 hours have seen a massive flow of news, good and bad. On the policy front, Congress has failed to pass a stimulus measure, but that's only posturing and the package will likely be even more aggressive than originally proposed. They did the exact same thing in 2008.

The Federal Reserve has been much more aggressive, and much quicker, than they were in 2008. Last week, we looked at the progress of monetary and fiscal measures during 2008, and the remarkable thing about our current juncture is that in the past 3 weeks, we've already seen many of the policies introduced or become operational that took the entirety of 2008 and part of 2009.

With the additional measures announced this morning, in many respects the Fed has been even more aggressive than anything we've seen before. Granted, the "enemy" is unlike anything we've seen before, so perhaps it's a moot point.

But those using 2008 as a playbook should adjust for the speed of not only the decline in financial assets, but the response we've already seen.