Stocks Finish at Session Low

"[BRIEFING.COM] After descending gradually during afternoon trading, the stock market made a sudden and precipitous drop to fall below the 1400-level. Buying interest returned momentarily in the final leg of trading, but proved unsustainable. All three of the major indices finished at their session low."


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Are tough times afoot in the US equities market? Financials also lead the spiral down. The dow lost about 200 points, sp500 25.69 points, and nasdaq at a whopping 44.82. Talk about ouch.


If prices get lower, they'll become bargains. If they go even lower, it might cause a panic!

Market update

"Energy, Financials Lead Market Higher

Dow +51.29 at 13020.83, Nasdaq +19.19 at 2483.31, S&P +10.77 at 1418.26

[BRIEFING.COM] On Tuesday, stocks got off to a negative start, but eventually ended the day with substantial gains after traders shrugged off record high crude prices, and seemingly bearish headlines out of financials and homebuilders. Specifically, the S&P 500 was down 0.7% shortly after the opening bell, and then steadily climbed higher to finish the day with a 0.8% gain.

Fannie Mae (FNM 30.81, +2.52) said it had a first quarter loss of $2.2 billion, or $2.57 per share, compared with earnings of $0.85 per share in the prior quarter. In an effort to shore up its balance sheet, Fannie is cutting its quarterly dividend by 30% to $0.25 per share and will raise $6 billion in capital. Its shares opened more than 7% lower, but quickly rebounded to finish the day with an advance of 9%. Fannie said that government regulators will be reducing Fannie's capital requirement level to 15% from 20%, which may have aided in the stock's reversal.

UBS (UBS 33.77, -0.54) reported a massive 11.5 billion Swiss francs loss (roughly $11 billion) for its most recent quarter, but the company had preannounced this result so it came as no surprise. UBS did provide some new information, though. UBS is selling $15 billion in mortgage assets to BlackRock (BLK 218.95, +3.55) and plans to eliminate 5,500 jobs by 2009."

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Always remember, one day market moves aren't indicative of what will happen in the future. Although financials took a beating today, they came back up overall. Can this be the shining light everyone is talking about?