Stock Market January-15 2009
Stocks tank on lousy retail sales, worries about banks Congress OKs release of final $350B of bailout Nortel files for bankruptcy A blood-red day on Wall Street ended with deep losses across the board — stocks, bond yields, oil, precious metals, the dollar. Any guesses why? The Dow Jones lost 2.9% (248 points) to close at 8,200. The S&P 500 dropped 3.3% (29 points) to 842. The Nasdaq tumbled 3.6% (56 points) to 1,489. The Russell 2000 swooned 4.3% (20 points) to 453. Briefing.com noted with an hour to go that roughly 93% of the companies in the S&P 500 were in the red, as were all 30 components of the Dow. The day's pile driver? The Commerce Department's report showing retail sales in December dropped 2.7%. Analysts had predicted a 1.2% decline. It was the sixth-straight monthly decline, a record. Don't forget the main pillar of our way of life: "Consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity." Another daily downer for invest...