Roller-coaster Wall Street session ends down
NEW YORK - Wall Street closed an uneasy session lower Wednesday as investors, uncertain if the worst of the credit crisis is over, refrained from extending Tuesday’s huge advance.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 76.08 to 13,231.01.
Microsoft, one of the 30 Dow stocks, slipped 53 cents to close at $33.93 a share. Boeing, also a Dow stock, fell 91 cents to $92.79.
Broader stock indicators also fell. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index lost 10.70 to 1,470.35, while the Nasdaq composite index tumbled 29.33 to 2,644.32.
Stocks bobbed in and out of positive territory for much of the day before taking a sharp turn lower in the last half-hour. Traders may well have been rattled when the chief executive of e-Trade Financial, Mitch Caplan, appeared on CNBC and talked about the online brokerage’s problems resulting from losses in its $3 billion portfolio of mortgage debt. While Caplan was upbeat, any reminder of credit-related uncertainty has easily unnerved the market - especially late in a session.
“All month long, once a direction has been established, it tends to accelerate in the last hour,” said Steven Goldman, chief market strategist with Weeden. “They hit a grease spot, and that was the case today, as well.”
The market was initially relieved after Bear Stearns Chief Financial Officer Sam Molinaro said the investment bank’s leveraged finance business is improving. But oil prices resumed their climb Wednesday, raising concerns that inflation risks could prevent the Federal Reserve from lowering rates to calm the shaky market.
A barrel of light sweet crude rose $2.92 to settle at $94.09 a barrel on the Nymex.