Moody's Knocks Stocks to Lows, Rubin Picks Them Up
For thrill seekers, Wall Street didn't disappoint today.
In the final hour, U.S. stocks swooned as bourses in Latin Americatumbled. The Latin American sell off was triggered by news that
Moody'sInvestors Service
downgraded Brazil's foreign currency debt rating toB2 from B1. However, the crushing losses in the U.S. were short-livedas stocks roared off their lows, apparently thanks to comments from Treasury Secretary
Robert Rubin
. Despite that rally off the bottom, themajor U.S. stock indices ended the session sharply lower.
The
Dow Jones Industrial Average
ended down 100.15 to 7682.22;the
S&P 500
lost 8.21 to 982.26; the
Nasdaq Composite Index
TheStreet Recommends
shed 20.99 to 1571.86; and the small-cap
Russell 2000
dropped 6.36 to346.29.
Rubin reiterated a frequent refrain, saying the U.S. economy continues on a path of solid growth and low inflation.
Shortly before 3:30 p.m. EDT the Dow plunged to its session low, falling 203.91 to 7578.46 before recovering.
On the
New York Stock Exchange
, volume reached 878.9 million shares, while
Nasdaq Stock Market
volume totaled 756.5 million shares.
On the NYSE, decliners beat advancers 2,089 to 995. On the Nasdaq, losers beat winners 2,864 to 1,449. On the NYSE, 433 issues hit new lows while 9 issues made new highs. On the Nasdaq, 565 issues hit new lows while 7 issues reached new highs.
In the U.S. government debt arena, the 30-year Treasury bond rose 17/32 to 102 30/32, the yield easing to 5.30%.
