Dow regains half of last week's loss; Nasdaq recoups 65%

Some quick numbers on the stock market’s momentous rebound today, which ended an eight-day losing streak that had dragged stocks to five-year lows:

--- The Dow Jones industrial average’s 936.42-point, 11.1% gain, to 9,387.61, recouped almost exactly 50% of what the index lost last week (1,874 points).

--- The Standard & Poor’s 500, up 11.6% today, recouped 52.1% of what it lost last week. The Nasdaq composite, up 11.8%, regained 65.4% of last week’s drop.

--- The Dow still is down 2,001 points, or 17.6%, from its close of 11,388 on Sept. 19 -- which was just before the market fell off the cliff on worsening fears about the financial system.

--- We’re still deep in a bear market: Measured from its all-time high of 14,164.53 a year ago, the Dow is down 33.7%. The S&P 500 is down 35.9% from its peak a year ago.

--- Energy stocks led the rally in the S&P 500 index today, rocketing 18.5%, on average, as crude oil futures bounced from a 13-month low on Friday to close at $81.19 a barrel, up $3.49. Energy stocks were last week’s biggest losers in the S&P, diving 25%.

--- In the 30-stock Dow, 29 issues were up. The only loser was General Electric Co., which slipped 50 cents to $21 after a JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst warned that the company faced "significant downside risk" from the economy.

Comments

[jb]

dead cat bounce

[Novice]

So after injecting a trillion dollars into the system, we're going to see the effects of a devalued dollar soon. The only thing that might save it is that relative to all the other countries that are participating the value may stay constant. So I'm thinking the play is in countries that are not pumping extra currency into their systems. Does anyone know what that is? Would it be China and India?

[Mr.Bilko]

The bounce is temporary. Consumer spending is almost 70% of the economy. Once retailers start posting their projected 4th quarter numbers expect to see a sell off, again. The exchanges will see-saw for the next few months. The Dow will eventually sink to 6500 to 7000 by Feb.2009 with retailers getting hit the hardest.