Stocks tumble as oil and inflation surge
Pastor Dale Morgan
Stocks tumble as oil and inflation surge*
Runaway oil prices, soaring food costs, deeper credit losses, economic
weakness, spiraling inflation — whodathunk?
The major indices fell hard today, recovering a bit by the close. The
Dow Jones suffered its steepest drop in five weeks, swooning 199 points
(1.5%) to finish at 12,828. The S&P 500 sank nearly 1%, falling from a
recent four-month high but still closing 10 points above 1,400. The
Nasdaq gave up nearly 1%, ending 8 points below 2,500.
Fears of an oil shortage within five years pushed oil futures to nearly
$140 a barrel — a $9 jump that stunned veteran traders, the Financial
Times writes. The daily spot price settled at more than $129 a barrel,
another record.
The Federal Reserve's vice chairman amplified the anxiety, saying the
U.S. economy is in “uncharted waters.”
And deepening the day's darkness, the light at the end of the
credit-crunch tunnel apparently is still in the distance.
"There are still some serious credit issues that need to be worked
through in a weakening economy driven by a weaker consumer,'' Leo
Grohowski, chief investment officer at Bank of New York Mellon Wealth
Management, told Bloomberg. "Some of the liquidity fears that were
really driving the market down have been minimized, but we are in the
midst of a credit crunch.''
The Associated Press and MarketWatch have more about Wall Street's
bad-haircut day.