Wall Street Differs On Monday Close

March 19, 2008

(Long Island, N.Y.) The collapse of Stern Bears Cos. which was widely considered as one of the top investment houses in the US bore heavily on Wall Street investors mind on Monday as evidenced by their hesitancy to conduct aggressive trading at the stock market.

Dow Jones industrials edged up a bit on Monday’s close as it gained 21.16 points or a 0.18 percent increase to finish with 11972.25 total points after it started the day losing by almost 200 points before staging a late rally to salvage a respectable advantage. Broader indexes Standard and Poor 500 fell 11.54 points for a 0.90 percent decline since previous day trading to end with 1,276.60 while NASDAQ composites was Monday’s biggest losers as it declined by 35.48 or 1.60 percent decrease to settle with 2,177.01.

“The market has absolutely no idea what’s going on,” said Dan Alpert who is a managing director for Westwood Capital. “Some people have accused them of whistling past the graveyard — I don’t think they even know where the graveyard is.”
On Sunday, backed by the government- JP Morgan Chase & Cos. announced its buy-out agreement with struggling investment company Stern Bears to takeover operations from the company for a measly $2 a share, a stunning decline since a year ago when Stern Bears commanded over $160 per shares of stocks. Federal reserves Chairman Ben Bernanke facilitated the “bail-out” of Stern Bears as a means of expressing the US government’s support for the struggling credit and loans industry. Also, the feds announced slashing down of interest rates to loans granted by government to lending houses by a quarter of a point to 3.25 percent.

In a statement released on Monday, Preside George W. Bush acknowledged current economic struggles in the US in saying, “One thing is for certain, we’re in challenging times, But another thing is for certain: We’ve taken strong, decisive action.” The President also pledged support to the country’s top economic leaders such as Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke. “Our financial institutions are strong and our capital markets are functioning efficiently and effectively. They are showing the country and the world that the United States is on top of the situation. When need be, we’ll act decisively in a way that continues to bring order to financial markets,” Bush said.