Much of what Margin Call is about has already happened in the few days and weeks before the day in the movie — the events that precipitated the widespread firings, including a rather deliberate firing of the head of risk management, but are not really discussed.

In the meeting, Sullivan is talking about the music slowing, saying "if the music were to stop…". He's suggesting that the situation is bad, in the context of the un-discussed preceding days, so some action is needed, which is why he escalated.

Tuld saying he fears he "can't hear anything" is about much more fundamental uncertainty — his own belief that no set of numbers could be useful (he didn't even want to discuss the numbers in the report) and that the actual situation required acting on his gut instinct that it was much, much worse.

He, basically, thinks the risk cannot be assessed ("I'm telling you, this is it!") and arbitrary action is needed.

In short, the point is he did not have any confidence they could ride out the consequences of the preceding, largely un-discussed few days, because they were beyond their parameters, and that there was no time to assess the real hidden risk.

The trigger for the chosen action is not the newly correct numbers in Sullivan's report, but it forcing Tuld to confront his belief that even those numbers were no guide for anything.

(Sam's dog dying after his sad failure of a divorce is a crucial metaphor — the dog days are literally and metaphorically over)

(Can't remember, is it this Texas one?)

ETA: This whole Oracle bit is really the area of Zitron's predictions that is the least contentious: he called things, they are happening.

The big question is to what extent this is a harbinger of bad things. In a less crazy market where the value of enterprise-software-backed consultancy is stable or growing, you can imagine people lining up to bite off chunks from the carcass of a failed Oracle. But is the value of enterprise software even stable? Aren't many of the possible buyers also overextending themselves?

ETA 2: No, the potential force majeure is about a project in New Mexico, apparently

Wouldn't hedge funds or PE recognize this arbitrage opportunity and eat this up, making this a non-issue? Vastly simplifying this: suppose "junk bond" means the chance of default is greater or equal to 10%. Of course it's bad if the risk of oracle going bankrupt edges up from 9% to 10.1%, but we shouldn't expect pandemonium from the 10% cliff edge, because there's plenty to be made by selling all the bonds that pension funds are obligated to sell, because now they have higher yields (yields move inverse to bond prices).

Equity shares do not have ratings, bonds have ratings. Everything else is correct, if their bond ratings slip one more level they will be rated junk which may force some holders to liquidate if they’re not allowed to hold junk bonds.

Of course past performance is no guarantee of future results, as they say.

Those bits could be sold off to different global consulting firms, I suspect.

(But aren't those global consulting firms also going to be freaked out about their own AI risks? And what does the whole AI-assisted coding thing do to a sober assessment of what all of Oracle's global business is worth? Lots of unanswered questions)

Also that is not the AI data centre bits; those will have to be chopped off and dumped.

If that doesn't seriously spook the markets — a company as well-known and formerly blue-chip as Oracle, needing an international bailout — then it would be kind of surprising.