What a Week: Fed to the Rescue

Another wild week on Wall Street left major averages lower, but traders were breathing easier after a sharp intraday reversal Thursday and the Federal Reserve's discount-rate cut Friday.

Following steep overnight losses in international bourses -- including the Nikkei's worst one-day decline since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- U.S. equity futures were pointing to a sharply lower open early Friday -- even sparking scuttlebutt about a potential "crash."

But futures quickly reversed following the Fed's move at around 8:15 a.m. EDT, and major averages ended the day sharply higher.

Friday's gains and Thursday's 300-plus point intraday turnaround pared weekly losses, but couldn't prevent the Dow Jones Industrial Average from falling 1.2% for the week. The S&P 500 lost 0.6% this week while the Nasdaq Composite shed 1.6%.

Prior to Friday's advance, tech stocks were weighed down by disappointing guidance from Applied Materials (AMAT Quote - Cramer on AMAT - Stock Picks) and Agilent Technologies (A Quote - Cramer on A - Stock Picks), which overshadowed the spectacular debut of VMWare (VMW Quote - Cramer on VMW - Stock Picks).

Intraday Thursday, all of the major averages were headed for a technical "correction," a 10% decline from recent highs. Each hit the benchmark during the trading day before rebounding sharply.

"It was a moral victory, a major reversal and technically bullish, and we got follow-through [Friday]," Teddy Weisberg, president of Seaport Securities says in an interview with TheStreet.com TV. "Clearly we were way oversold and due for a technical rally -- we'll know by the middle of next week if this rally has legs or not."

« Previous Page

1 2 3

Next Page »