Party like it’s 2008! The Dow Jones Industrials briefly dropped 998.50 points this afternoon, then recovered within minutes to a loss in the 400 to 500 range, and is now… well… see for yourself where it is now, since anything I type will be obsolete by the time I hit “Publish.”
Needless to say, during the crazy moments between, like, 2:40 and 2:55 Eastern Time, when the Dow dropped many hundreds of points in a matter of minutes — then promptly gained those points right back — people were freaking out, live on TV (and Twitter). Also, for a brief time, Bloomberg and Yahoo! Finance were inaccessible, presumably due to a crush of PANIC!!!!!-stricken web surfers crushing their servers. Crazy times, those were, back in the Panic of ’10. Why, I remember it like it was a half-hour ago…
Charles Fenwick comments:
I’ve had CNBC on the better part of the afternoon and the brief period when it went from -600 to -1000 was the most unreal thing I’ve seen since the meltdown when the House failed to pass the TARP legislation back in September 2008. Cramer uttered a “Levin” on-air at one point. The peak was the instant when they displayed P&G’s stock down 25% for an instant. Something went haywire on the trading networks.
Analysts are blaming computerized trading, and Greece.
UPDATE: Video of the CNBC craziness:
P.S. If you’re wondering what it would have taken to shut down the market: Because this all happened after 2:30 PM Eastern, it would have taken a 20% drop — 2,150 points — so we weren’t close. But if the panic had happened 15-20 minutes earlier, a 1,050-point drop would have closed the market for a half-hour. We almost hit that number, though not quite.
Some follow-up:
-For those unaware of the particular of the 2008 event I referred to: When it became clear that the TARP bill was not going to pass on the afternoon of September 29,2008 the stock market went nose down for a few minutes, dropping several hundred points in a few minutes. On CNBC at that moment, commentators were trying to determine whether the bill had indeed failed to pass while the market was crashing. I’ll never forget the fear in Maria Bartiromo’s voice when she said “We’re down 700 here). That was the day the market closed down a record (points-wise) 777 POINTS.
– The difference between then and today was that on-air fear. The reaction of the CNBC crew was more incredulous than anything. Cramer’s bleeped out utterance was more casual disbelief than panic.
– Now it’s being rumored that it was someone at a trading firm entering an order as B(illions) instead of M(illions). Budweiser Commercial:
Real Men of Genius
Here’s to you Mr. Wall Street trader. Thanks to your fat fingers high powered firm placed an order in the billions when it should have been millions.
(What a shi**y deal!)
The market was already jittery, but your act of brilliance caused a full-fledged panic.
(This sucker’s goin’ down!)
The market survived .. this time. Next time you place a big order be more careful will ya?
(Mr. Fat-fingered over-leveraged Wall Street trader…)