Wall Street: Stocks Fall as Oil Prices Soar

February 20, 2008

(Long Island, N.Y.) Wall Street conceded an early advantage by mid-day trading as news of soaring oil prices in the New York Mercantile Exchange reached the market in the latter stages of the day which defused early momentum gained by major indexes and composites in the market.

The Dow Jones Industrial had a promising start which saw them gathering a possible triple digit gain by mid-afternoon. That would have been a welcoming sign for investors although the day ended up losing 10.99 points and closed at 12337.22, a 0.9% decline. The NASDAQ composites also fell 15.6 points to end with 2306.20 while the Standard and Poor 500 lost a minimal 1.5 points to finish with 1348.78.

Other key issues for investors are worries with the upcoming release of the Labor Department report for its January consumer pricing which is a meteoric barometer for inflation. Richard Sparks a senior equities analyst at Schaeffer’s Investment Research in Cincinnati says, “I think there are still a lot of worries in the market that we have this stagnant growth in the economy and higher prices.”

Wall Street analysts and experts hope to end the week on the positive side to assist our economy against inflation. Traders are concerned that if our economy ends up with a high inflation rate, it might affect the outcome of the upcoming March 18th meeting for the Federal Reserve as Wall Street expects another yet Interest rate cut by the Central Bank which could prove advantageous for the market.

“Can these financial stocks get to the bottom of their questions of soundness in asset quality? We have to reach a tipping point here,” said Richard Cripps, chief market strategist for Stifel Nicolaus. “That’s the part that I think has to occur for this market to have a sustained advance.”

Posted by News LI Editor · Edited by Brianna - Filed Under Money