The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened down about 600 points on Monday, as industrial, financial and consumer stocks plunged.
Stocks with airline exposure, such as United Technologies and Boeing
, lost about 20%. American Express
lost about 20%. American Airlines parent AMR
and United Airlines parent UAL
each lost about 40%.
The Nasdaq fared somewhat better, trading down about 100 points to 1594. The S&P 500 lost 53 to 1039. All major indexes undercut their April lows.
The Federal Reserve cut interest rates by 50 basis points in a move to boost the market, and pledged to continue to supply liquidity to the financial system. Global central banks followed in a coordinated effort.
Big-cap issues like Microsoft , Cisco
, Intel
, Sun
and Oracle
were all down 5%-7%.
Oracle topped estimates last week, and license sales came in better than expected, but analysts said the bottom line results came largely from cost-cutting. The company will hold a conference call after the close tonight.
Travelocity and Expedia
plunged on concern about slowing travel in the wake of last week’s terrorist attacks with hijacked airliners on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
After the longest shutdown since the Great Depression, trading resumed this morning with safety measures in place that were authorized after the crash of 1987 but never used until now.
The biggest change in trading rules, in place for this week only, is a relaxation of restrictions on when companies can buy back their own stock and how much they can buy. Companies will be allowed to buy four times as much of their own stock as they can under normal rules, and they will be allowed to buy during the important first and last 30 minutes of trading.
We will update our market coverage throughout the day at http://www.InternetStockReport.com, and will publish comprehensive coverage in our Market Close after the close of trading.
