In reviewing the episode, the Brady Commission noted that although the clearinghouse system avoided defaults, investor uncertainties about the viability of the clearinghouses, as well as about the ability of major broker-dealers to meet their obligations, intensified market fluctuations and panic.12 In response, the public and private sectors worked together to address the weaknesses that had been revealed – for example, by clarifying the obligations that clearinghouses, clearing members, and settlement banks must assume and by bolstering the liquidity and security of the financial resources of clearinghouses.13 In 2008, clearinghouses and their members were again tested by significant financial shocks, both in the United States and abroad.
Although the events of 2008 were not centered in equity-related markets, the measures taken after 1987 no doubt contributed to the resilience of clearing arrangements in the securities and derivatives markets. The official sector’s support arrangements for financial firms and markets, including the Federal Reserve’s  9  See National Monetary Commission, “Clearing Houses,” in note 3, pp. 75–136.