Dow falls 360 points on renewed credit concerns
Friday, the 19th marked the 20th anniversary of the 1987 stock market crash, otherwise known as Black Monday- and stocks on Wall Street seemed to want to live up to that. Disappointing earnings, near record-oil prices, continuing credit problems and underlying fears that the worst is ahead for the economy brought the market down sharply. Citigroup, Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase led financial shares to their worst week since 2002. Energy producers dropped the most in two years.
Sentiment took further hit when Standard & Poor's downgraded another batch of residential mortgage-backed securities, adding to investor unease about credit quality. Two-year treasury notes rallied the most since September 2001 as investors sought the safety of government debt. After touching $ 90.07 overnight, light, sweet crude fell 87 cents to settle at $ 88.60 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The Dow fell 366.94, or 2.64%, to 13,522.02. The Dow was down for the fifth straight session and for the week was off 4.05%. For the year, the blue chip index is now up 8.5%. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 39.45, or 2.56%, to 1,500.63, and the Nasdaq composite index dropped 74.15, or 2.65%, to 2,725.16. For the week, the S&P 500 fell 3.92% and the Nasdaq fell 2.87%.
