Market Ends Week With Deeper Losses

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

Wall Street ended a depressing week with another big loss today, with the Dow Jones industrials falling more than 100 points amid ever-escalating worries about high oil prices and fallout from the credit crisis. The major indexes all all down more than 3% for the week.

The Dow has fallen nearly 460 points in the last two days and reached its lowest point since September 2006.

Investors again contended today with a seemingly relentless stream of troubling news about the financial sector. Moody’s Investors Service said it is reviewing investment bank Morgan Stanley for a possible downgrade. There were also more reports that Merrill Lynch & Co. might have to write off nearly $6 billion of risky mortgage-backed debt.

In addition to anxiety about the financials, the market watched oil’s march higher — the price of crude rose to a new record of $142.99 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Wall Street remains concerned that higher commodity prices will slam consumers with not only elevated costs for energy and food, but also for other goods if cash-strapped companies decide to pass along the rising costs.

“People are trading with a lot of emotion,” an economist and market analyst for Chicago-based Barrington Research, Alexander Paris, said. “I think the market is trying to make a bottom, but the question is will it hold there or just crash through. It feels just like the top of the technology bubble in 2000, you know there’s something wrong but it is hard to time it.”

Investors got little solace from economic data released today. The Commerce Department said spending rose 0.8% in May, as taxpayers started receiving their stimulus checks. The increase was higher than the 0.7% economists predicted. The report also said personal incomes surged 1.9% — significantly more than anticipated. After taxes, incomes surged 5.7%, the largest amount in 33 years.

According to preliminary calculations, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 106.91, or 0.93%, to 11,346.51, compounding yesterday’s 358-point skid. The blue chip index is down 19.9% from its record high close of 14,164.53 in October, and is on the verge of the 20% pullback that is considered the threshold for a bear market.

Broader stock indicators also closed lower. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 4.77, or 0.37%, to 1,278.38. The S&P, the index most closely watched by market professionals, is down 18.3% from its October high.

The Nasdaq composite index fell 5.74, or 0.25%, to 2,315.63.

For the week, the Dow gave up 4.19%, the S&P shed 3%, and the Nasdaq fell 3.76%.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers by about 3 to 2 Friday on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 1.4 billion shares.

Bond prices edged higher. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which tends to move opposite its price, was at 3.96%, down from 4.03% late yesterday. The dollar was lower against other major currencies, while gold prices rose.

In other economic news, the University of Michigan’s June index of consumer sentiment came in at 56.4, a bit lower than its reading in May and slightly below the average analyst estimate.

“The problem is that there’s not one, single worry,” the chairman and chief investment officer of Johnson Illington Advisors, Hugh Johnson, said. He pointed to high gas prices, still-tight credit market conditions, and the contracting housing market. “If you’re looking for problems that face investors, that face the U.S. economy, they’re everywhere.”

Yesterday’s drop came on a combination of worries about oil prices and the financial, automotive and technology sectors. General Motors Corp. shares dropped to their lowest level in more than three decades.

GM shares rose 12 cents to $11.55 today.

Also today, a Lehman Brothers analyst lifted his prediction of Merrill Lynch’s asset markdowns in the second quarter. His write-down estimate rose to $5.4 billion from $3 billion. Yesterday, a Goldman Sachs analyst forecast a $4.2 billion write-down at Merrill and a nearly $9 billion write-down at Citigroup Inc.

Merrill shares fell 35 cents to $32.70, and Citigroup shares fell 42 cents, or 2.3%, to $17.25.

Morgan Stanley dropped 12 cents to $36.71 after Moody’s said the investment bank’s “financial performance and risk management has been inconsistent” since credit markets began last year. The company will focus its review on Morgan Stanley’s ability to control risk and generate profit over the next one to two years — a period Moody’s expects will be challenging for investment banks.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 0.28, or 0.04%, to 698.14.

Overseas, Japan’s Nikkei stock average fell 2.01% after Wall Street’s tumble. In afternoon trading, Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.21%, Germany’s DAX index fell 0.58%, and France’s CAC-40 lost 0.65%.


The New York Sun

© 2025 The New York Sun Company, LLC. All rights reserved.

Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. The material on this site is protected by copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used.

The New York Sun

Sign in or  Create a free account

or
By continuing you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use