Flash: Dow drops below 10,000 for the first time since 2004

Posted Oct 6th 2008 10:28AM by Melly Alazraki
Filed under: Major Movement, International Markets, From the Boards, eBay (EBAY), Market Matters, Caterpillar (CAT), Alcoa Inc (AA), Recession, Financial Crisis

The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 336.43 points, or 3.26%, to below 10,000 -- 9988.95 -- for the first time in four years, since Oct. 29, 2004. Similarly, the S&P 500 dropped 3.66% and the Nasdaq declined 3.97%. As investors looked for safety they sold stocks and piled into government bonds.

As expected, Wall Street joined a global selloff today as the financial crisis seemed to have deepened, especially in Europe. In addition, fears of a global economic slowdown dampened investors mood further. The expected boost from the $700 billion bailout plan approved Friday was non-existent as the weekend was full of news from Europe regarding the cascading financial crisis.

The financial crisis and the economic slowdown are now hitting the next set of stocks like Aluminum giant Alcoa Inc. (NYSE: AA) -- down about 8% -- or Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) -- down over 5% -- both companies expected to have difficulties either accessing funds or suffer from the global economic slowdown, or both. News of eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) -- down 5.5% -- laying off over 1,000 employees didn't help, only served as a reminder of the bad employment numbers from Friday and the expected worsening conditions in the jobs market.

Tags: aa, cat, ebay, inthenews

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

10-06-2008 @ 1:55PM

JDSalinger12 said...

The market is starting to show signs of the seriousness of the situation. Now, even our big banks are fighting each other in a break neck race to consolidate which is being done for business survival rather than business gain. Unfortunately, the bailout will not help them much. They are suffering and when they suffer, we all hurt. Individual investors should start looking for ways to protect their money. This basically comes down to either taking your money out of the market and cutting discretionary spending or diversifying and investing some overseas preferably in Asia or parts of Europe. I personally use offshore bank accounts and they have helped me with diversification and asset protection. If you want to read more on why offshore investing is smarter, feel free to visit my website.

Best,
Frank Miller
http://www.theoffshorebankaccount.com