The Washington Independent » Dow Jones Industrial Average

SEC, Congress Investigate Thursday Stock Market Boomerang

Annie Lowrey — Mon, 10 May 2010 21:12:28 +0000

Today, the Securities and Exchange Commission met with the heads of the major U.S. stock exchanges, including the New York Stock Exchange and alternative venues like Nasdaq and the Chicago Board Options Exchange. They discussed Thursday’s stock exchange event, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1,000 points before rebounding to a 348-point loss, all in a matter of minutes. The regulator said it has not yet determined what happened, and today’s meeting did not come to any conclusions.

Congress is taking the issue up this week as well. Tomorrow, the same executives who met with the SEC today will appear at a hearing of the House Financial Services Capital Markets Subcommittee, called by Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.). And last week, Sens. Ted Kaufman (D-Del.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) asked the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to investigate the market event in Sen. Chris Dodd’s (D-Conn.) financial regulatory reform bill.

Dow Jones Crosses Intrinsically Meaningless Milestone

Annie Lowrey — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 21:30:59 +0000

Investors, rejoice! The Dow Jones Industrial Average has crossed the 11,000 mark for the first time since September 26, 2008. The news has caused much breathlessness in a financial blogosphere hungry for good news. But, to throw some cold water on the situation, the number 11,000 is no more meaningful than, say, 7 or 912,384. Rising stock prices make money for investors and bring new entrants into the stock market. But they have only a tangential relationship to macroeconomic fundamentals. And, soberingly, having the Dow at 11,000 puts us precisely where we were in May 1999.

Blaming Obama for the Dow

David Weigel — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:34:37 +0000

The Republican National Committee emails reporters President Obama’s comment that “the stock market is sort of like a tracking poll in politics” and that people should fret about it. The RNC writes:

Please note President Obama’s comments at today’s media avail that he is not spending much time “worrying about that.”

The sinking Dow Jones Industrial Average is emerging as an attack line for Republicans—on his radio show today, Rush Limbaugh claimed that “capital is on strike” against the president—but there’s some message muddle about when, exactly, Obama started wrecking everything.

Jeff Emanuel of RedState.com:

Since the Democrats took over Congress in January 2007, the Dow has lost 46% of its value — 5,699.86 points — with 1,452.38 of that decline coming in the mere month and a half since President Obama’s inauguration.

Sean Hannity on Fox News last night:

If we go back to May 6th when it was apparent that he was going to probably be the Democratic nominee the stock market was over 13000, and if we go to October just before the election, the polls show that he had a pretty commanding lead over John McCain, the stock market was, what, around the 11000 plus mark.

Michelle Malkin:

On Nov. 4, after Barack Obama clinched the White House, the market closed at 9,625.28.

So when was it?