The Federal Reserve pushed through an emergency cut in the discount rate window Friday morning before the stock market opened by 50 basis points, or a half percent. This decision was cheered by traders, who a should have been led by Jim Cramer after his ranting and raving on CNBC the other day demanding that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke cut the discount rate because of how bad the credit markets are behaving.

This cut in the rate window sent stocks soaring at the open and some of the big gainers for the day were primarily banks, especially those mortgage plays that have been beaten down in recent days like Countrywide Financial which finished the day up over 13% after a very volatile trading session on Thursday when stocks took a tumble in the morning hours and rallied strongly after 1pm.

This move is surely going to shake things up even more, but I don’t think it’s enough to save the struggling mortgage lenders and exposed banking institutions from the subprime mess. I took the opportunity to sell financials into the news and lock in some nice gains, but am going to sit on the sidelines for a while until everything pans out and the true motive of the Federal Reserve is elaborated.

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