Dow Jones Suffers Biggest Percentage Decline in 20 Years
October 10th, 2008Via: Telegraph:
The Dow Jones index fell 678.9 to 8579.2, its biggest percentage drop since Black Monday in October 1987 and its third biggest points decline in history.
In a staggering final hour of trading, the Dow fell more than 400 points after Standard & Poor’s downgraded car maker General Motors and investors were forced to sell off shares to meet margin calls.
The S&P 500 fell 75.0 to 909.9 while the Nasdaq closed down 95.2 at 1645.1, its lowest level since August 2003.
Trading volumes soared, sending volatility near to all time highs, as the Dow closed down 7.3pc. That came exactly a year after the index hit an all-time high on October 9, 2007.
“This is just pure panic,” said Chris Orndorff, head of equity strategy at Payden & Rygel in Los Angeles.
The slump led to calls for governments in Europe and the US to push through more draconian moves to help ailing financial markets, including full nationalisation of banks.
“We’re facing the unthinkable and we have got to think the unthinkable,” said John Browne, senior market strategist at Euro Pacific Capital. “And the unthinkable is the government taking over banks.”
My friend sent the following post tonight.
I don’t have two months to spare, but I’ll get what I can tomorrow and Saturday.
“If ever a weekend offered fair promise for declaring
a bank holiday, it’s this one. First, the G7 finance
“ministers” are meeting in Washington, no doubt to
talk about “restructuring the international financial
architecture”, which our masters have long longed to
do. Second, it’s a long holiday weekend, & the yankee
government always likes to throw its surprise parties
on weekends, when nobody can do anything to protect
himself. Third, they haven’t staunched the bleeding in
the system yet. Listen, I am not predicting they’ll declare
a bank holiday, but it’s a possibility, so pick up some
extra cash tomorrow, like, a couple of month’s living
expenses.”
I say go for what you can.