Stocks drop on economic concerns despite bailout
Thank god for the bailout. Â We've been saved! Bush, Pelosi, Paulson, et al prove to be geniuses.
So, the Dow lost over 750 points when the House failed to pass the first bailout legislation. Â The Dow was down -157.47Â at close today as Wall Street traders react to the new pork salad sandwich passed today.
Â
Reuters
Friday October 3, 4:44 pm ETÂ
By Kristina Cooke
NEW YORK (Reuters) -Wall Street ended its worst week in seven years with another tumble on Friday on fears that the $700 billion financial rescue package may not unblock credit markets and stave off a U.S. recession.
After much legislative haggling that roiled and captivated global markets for the past two weeks, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the bill on its second try and President George W. Bush signed it into law.
Financial stocks, which had traded sharply higher on the expectation the bill would be passed, fell after the House vote. Traders cited profit-taking and said the market was now focusing on the tough economic road still ahead and on how the bill will be implemented.
The S&P financial index fell 3.9 percent, while the three major indexes all fell more than 1 percent.
The monthly jobs report earlier in the day suggested the economy may be in a recession. U.S. employers cut 159,000 jobs in September, the ninth straight monthly reduction and the steepest decline in five and a half years.
"There's just a tremendous amount of anxiety out there and that's breeding volatility. People are concerned that the bailout won't unlock the credit markets, so people are taking a hard look at things," said Anthony Conroy, head trader for BNY Convergex, an affiliate of the Bank of New York.
"The economic data in the past few days has been bad and the outlook for earnings is fairly bleak. We got over one major hurdle with the rescue plan, but there's more to go."
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 157.15 points, or 1.50 percent, to 10,325.70, while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index slid 15.04 points, or 1.35 percent, to 1,099.24. It was the first time the S&P closed below 1,100 in almost four years.
The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 29.33 points, or 1.48 percent, at 1,947.39.
Three-month dollar Libor rates, key benchmark rates for the banking industry, climbed to 4.33375 percent, the highest since early January, while their euro-denominated equivalent surged to a record high.
It was a week of extreme volatility for the U.S. stock market. On Monday, the Dow posted is biggest point decline in history after the House of Representatives rejected an initial bank bailout plan, while the volatility index hit a record high. The S&P 500 on three days posted moves bigger than 4 percent.
The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq had their worst week since September 2001, and the Dow had its worst week since July 2002.
On Friday, shares of Wells Fargo fell 1.7 percent to $34.56 after the bank stepped in to buy Wachovia Corp, topping a government-backed Citigroup bid for some of the bank's assets. Wachovia's shares jumped 58.8 percent. Citigroup plunged 18.4 percent to $18.35.
The Dow Jones home construction index fell 6.6 percent, with D.R. Horton, the largest U.S. home builder, down 8.4 percent at $11.07.
Trading was moderate on the New York Stock Exchange, with about 1.42 billion shares changing hands, below last year's estimated daily average of roughly 1.9 billion, while on Nasdaq about 2.51 billion shares traded above last year's daily average of 2.17 billion.
Declining stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by 2 to 1 and on the Nasdaq by about 3 to 1.
(Editing by Leslie Adler)
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i was just thinking this today...
thank heavens they approved the bailout!! can you imagine the carnage we'd be witnessing on The Streetâ„¢ if they hadn't??
Can someone check this math?
If you had purchased $1,000 of AIG stock one year ago, you would have $42 left.
With Lehman, you would have $6.60 left.
With Fannie or Freddie, you would have less than $5 left.
But if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all ofthe beer, then turned in the cans for the aluminum recycling REFUND, you would have had $214.
In Oregon, the refund would be .05 per can.
I aced Beer Math in school
$214 / $0.05 = 4280 cans of beer
$1000 / 4280 cans =Â $0.2336 per can including tax + deposit
= $1.40 per six pack including tax and deposit - where i live tax is about 8%
accounting for the $0.30 deposit per six pack, that works out to ~$0.99 per six pack before tax and deposit.
That would have to be some of the cheapest beer in America. The good stuff is like $8 a six pack in my neighborhood. Even the crap is like $2.50 a sixer. Searching around online it seems the cheapest of the cheap is about $0.33 per can. Maybe you can get a bulk discount if you buy 4000 cans at once, but still... i remember drinking some stuff that was that cheap back in the early 90s - I think it was Olympia or something, it was pretty bad.Â
Let's see, 4280 cans over 365 days = almost 12 cans a dayÂ
One probably wouldn't be in too good of shape after drinking 11 or 12 cans every day for a year....although, comparatively, not a bad investment!
A 12-pach a day is about par for the course...
... in these hills. No deposit, no return. Most of the msnual laborers pick up a 12-pack on the way home from work each day at the gas station I frequent. I was recently told the numbers they do in beer each evening. It was staggering. No liquor (socialist state-owned monopoly here).  Only a little wine.
Olympia wasn't too bad, if I remember correctly. Milwalkee's Best. That's one bad beer.
Okay, so...
Let's say you bought halfway decent beer in Oregon: $5 for a six-pack, including deposit, no sales tax.
1000/5 = 200 six-packs
Refund value at .30 per six-pack: $60
Beer consumption: Approx 4 six-packs per week (less likely to cause brain damage, future earnings possibly higher.)
How does this compare to Diet Dr. Pepper?
Anyone?
No aspartame
Though, I hear aspartame is nutricious.
--
Though human noses have an impressive 5 million olfactory cells with which to smell, sheepdogs have 220 million, enabling them to smell 44 times better than men.
Speaking of beer
I recently had some excellent belgian beer, "Leffe", which my brother brought from Luxembourg. If you can get your hands on it some time, DO IT!
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happiness is either here or nowhere