Dow, but Not Out: Massive Losses Avoided on Wall Street

What started out as a catastrophy on Wall Street ended as just another in a series of bad days for investors with the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing down 312 points.

Stock markets are tumbling abroad and in the U.S. Dow futures dropped 550 points Friday morning, the maximum allowed by the New York Stock Exchange.

(AP Photos)

Just a few months ago such a large drop would have been seen a miserable day. Today, investors were close to cheering.

The day started off with a massive drop in stock futures after a sell-off overseas, triggered by fears of a deep and prolonged global recession. The drop was large enough to trigger a trading halt but that halt appears to have helped Wall Street to avoid a market meltdown today.

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Within minutes of the 9:30 a.m. market open, the Dow fell 500 points. But after hitting a low of -501.46 points at 9:35 a.m., the index stabilized, staying down most of the morning. Throughout the day it slowly climbed, fell and climbed again. By 3:01 p.m., the Dow was only down 106.81 points before dropping down again. It never turned positive.

The Dow closed down about 315 points, or 3.25 percent. It was a bad day but nowhere near the catastrophe many were expecting at the start of the day.

The S&P 500 lost 3.5 percent and the Nasdaq lost 3.2 percent.

For the week, the biggest loser was the Nasdaq shedding 9.3 percent, compared to 6.8 percent for the S&P and 5.4 percent for the Dow.

For the month, the Dow is down 22.8 percent so far, the S&P is down 24.7 percent and the Nasdaq is down 25.8 percent.