Lehman Brothers files for bankruptcy

A Lehman Brothers employee carries a box away from an office of the US investment bank in Canary Wharf, London Photograph: Andrew Winning/Reuters

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where high level meetings were held in a last-ditch attempt to save Lehman. A failed plan was followed by more seismic shocks from Wall Street, including an apparent government-brokered takeover of Merrill Lynch by the Bank of America Photograph: David Karp/AP

The week in figures:
Monday - FTSE 100 down 210 points at 5202.4; Dow Jones plunges 504 points to 10,917.51
Tuesday - FTSE down 178.6 to 5025.6; Dow up 141.5 at 11,059
Wednesday - FTSE down 113.2 at 4912.4; Dow down 449 at 10,609
Thursday - FTSE down 32.4 at 4880; Dow closes 410 points higher at 11,019.69
Friday - FTSE surges 431.3 points to 5311.3; Dow up 386.10 at 11,405.79 Photograph: Cheryl Ravelo/Reuters

People walk out of the Lehman building in New York carrying boxes of their belongings as security guards look on Photograph: Chip East/Reuters

The FTSE 100 index closed down 212.5 points on Monday, meaning £50bn had been wiped off the value of Britain's top companies. In monetary terms more was wiped off top companies than was lost in the stock market crash of 1987 Photograph: PA Wire/PA

Mo Grimeh, a managing director who worked at Lehman for 10 years, reacts as he leaves the company's headquarters on 7th Avenue in New York after hearing the news that the bank may be forced to seek an orderly unwinding of its businesses Photograph: David Karp/AP

A woman walks past a monitor showing the stocks index figures in Taipei, where share prices closed down 4.09% on worries over the global financial system Photograph: Sam Yeh/AFP/Getty

Tourists gathered outside Lehman's offices in New York to take snaps as shocked employees left the building Photograph: Michael Nagle/Getty

Indian investors watch shares prices on a digital stock ticker outside the Bombay Stock Exchange building in Mumbai. Indian shares tumbled 5.19% within minutes of opening Photograph: Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty

Later in the week it emerged that some of Lehman's UK staff (seen here outside the London HQ) could be thrown a lifeline in a Barclays buyout of the bank's US operations Photograph: Andrew Winning/Reuters