“A yearlong credit squeeze culminated in the past two weeks with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the bailout out of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and American International Group Inc.”

—Bloomberg

Main Entry: cul·mi·nate
Pronunciation: \ˈkəl-mə-ˌnāt\
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): cul·mi·nat·ed; cul·mi·nat·ing
Etymology: Medieval Latin culminatus, past participle of culminare, from Late Latin, to crown, from Latin culmin-, culmen top — more at hill
Date: 1647 

intransitive verb

1. of a celestial body : to reach its highest altitude ; also : to be directly overhead.2. a: to rise to or form a summit b: to reach the highest or a climactic or decisive point

transitive verb: to bring to a head or to the highest point

For global business confidence to improve two things are needed: the U.S. housing market to bottom out and a sign that the financial turmoil is nearing an end. That won’t be until around the second quarter in 2009.

—Masamichi Adachi, a senior economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Tokyo