What is tanking anyways?

On those rare occasions I start caring about the origins of certain words that I use. The one that's come up quite often lately is the word "Tanking". A very a propos word when concerning the state of the American (and the rest of the world) stock market.

The source of all knowledge, Wikipedia (and it's sister dictionary site) say this about Tanking.

1. To fail or fall (often used in describing the economy or the stockmarket); to degenerate or decline rapidly; to plummet.
2. (Online RPG) To attract the attacks of a monster, so that the other people in the group can defeat the monster in question more efficiently.
3. To put fuel into a tank

Looking at today's stock market, I'd certainly say number 1 is the most common use of the term today. This morning the treemap was looking much more red.

A little aside here. I have no idea how to use the definition tag within blogger so I'll put the definition of a treemap here: "a visualization technique in which hierarchical information is displayed within nested rectangles, with each level of nesting corresponding to a level of hierarchical decomposition"

So the financial markets have picked up slightly. The Fed chairman has slashed interest rates to get the banks lending out money again. One will wait and see until this evening to see how well Tokyo and Hong Kong respond.