Closing Bell: The meltdown that almost was . . . NCC, HIG, SAP, DNDN

Posted Oct 6th 2008 4:40PM by Jon Ogg
Filed under: After the Bell, Major Movement, Market Matters, Financial Crisis

Today was almost a totally depressing day of a bear market, but by the end of the session, it turned out to be less terrible -- just another bad day rather than a total write-off.

Hopes and rumors of coordinated global rate cuts or some form of coordinated intervention helped stabilize the stock market somewhat by the end of the day. However, the initial shock of Dow below 10,000 rapidly became Dow at 9,500+ before the market recovered sharply from being down 800 points.

The bad thing about today's major selloff is that there was no sense of capitulation and no sense that panic had engulfed Wall Street. Instead, this is just orderly panic where looters and vandals cue up to take action.

Here are today's unofficial closing bell levels:
DJIA 9,955.50 (-369.88; -3.58%)
NASDAQ 1,862.96 (-84.43; -4.34%)
S&P500 1,056.89 (-42.34; -3.85%)
10YR T-Note 3.426% (-0.218%)

National City (NYSE: NCC) was one of the most active of the worst performing banks. Shares were down 27% at $2.54 in the minutes right before the closed.

Dendreon Corp. (NASDAQ: DNDN) was up 33% at $6.98 in the minutes right before the close on more than 35 million shares of stock today. The company issued mixed to positive data on PROVENGE. While this is still a year from a resolution, there is hope that this will tip the FDA into a more friendly stance.

Hartford Financial Services (NYSE: HIG) was one of today's few winning stocks throughout the day. While it warned on results, it did secure $2.5 billion from Allianz. Shares were up 14% at $31.42 in the minutes immediately before the close.

SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) was down 13% at $39.68 in the minutes right before the close. Its stock was hammered on news that a sudden drop "off the cliff" of orders going into the quarter-end caused a large shortfall.

Tags: DNDN, HIG, NCC, SAP