Bankruptcy

How Bad Was it?

By J. Michael McBride

The Dow dropped 680 points yesterday. How bad was that? “The Dow lost 679.95 points to close at about 8,149. There have only been three days in market history with bigger point losses for the Dow -- the Monday after the Sept. 11 attacks, and Sept. 29 and Oct. 15 of this year.” Another way of looking at it was to see that only one stock ended higher at the day’s end out of the entire S&P 500. That is a broad and deep fall after a stunning rise. “During the five-day win streak, which began when word reached Wall Street that President-elect Barack Obama would name New York Federal Reserve chief Timothy Geithner as his treasury secretary, the Dow had gained 1,276 points, and the S&P 500 had surged almost 20 percent. In normal times, the markets might gain that much in two good years, not five days. So analysts said a pullback was understandable. Friday's unofficial start to the holiday shopping season wasn't the bust that some investors had feared but indicated that, at best, consumers will be more fickle in their spending this year.” Today, markets are up almost 200 points this morning.

Here is a link to follow today’s market:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?d=t&s=%5EDJI .

And here is a link to one article on yesterday’s mess:
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081201/wall_street.html

Michael

Full post as published by Texas Lawyer Blog on December 02, 2008 (boomark / email).