Stocks Post Sixth Day of Loses

Oct. 8, 2008— -- Investors today flip-flopped between optimism and fear, sending stocks on a wild yo-yo ride as governments raced to stabilize world financial markets.

Despite a coordinated effort early this morning by the world's central banks to jointly cut interest rates, investors couldn't decide if the measures were sufficient and if the market had yet hit bottom, meaning it would finally be safe to start buying again.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down as much as 250 points and up as much as 180 points today before closing down 189 points. It was the sixth straight day of loses on Wall Street.

The Nasdaq lost 0.8 percent today and the S&P 500 lost 1.1 percent.

The Dow had lost 13 percent of its value in the past five days and 20 percent in the last 12 days. Today added another 2 percent on to those losses.

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"We're due for some type of bounce," said Ryan Detrick, senior technical strategist at Schaeffer's Investment Research. "We know that. It's going to bounce eventually."

"The Fed and world governments have done a lot up until now and clearly nothing has worked. This move here is one the last bullets in the chamber," he added.

Detrick warned though that many investors are pulling their money out of hedge funds, which is likely to cause further downward pressure for the market. Also, companies are now starting to report quarterly earnings that could disappoint investors.

Like many on Wall Street this morning, R. Don Elsey, CFO of Emergent Biosolutions, said that with all the governments working together, he believes the markets will recover but "it is going to take time."

"It will help but it is just one of many things that has to happen though. By itself it's not going to cure the issues we have today," Elsey said.