(AP) A drop in financial shares pounded the stock market after President Barack Obama proposed greater restrictions on big banks.
The Dow Jones industrial average tumbled 213 points after dropping 122 on Wednesday. The index has seen four straight triple-digit moves and the latest slide erased the Dow's gains for 2010. Bond prices rose as the stock market became more volatile.
Tightening the rules on risk-taking and trading at banks could hurt profits at those companies. Obama said he would seek to limit the size and complexity of large financial companies so that a bank's collapse wouldn't endanger the overall financial system.
The move could mean changes for how big financial institutions like Bank of America, Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are structured. Each of the stocks fell more than 4 percent.
Weakness in manufacturing also brought concern that the economy might not be recovering as quickly as hoped. The Philadelphia Federal Reserve said manufacturing in its region fell in January from December. Its index of regional manufacturing conditions fell to 15.2 from a revised 22.5 last month.
Another test for the market could come Friday. Google Inc. posted a fivefold jump in its fourth-quarter profit after the closing bell on double-digit revenue growth, but the results fell short of expectations. The stock fell $27.40, or 4.7 percent, to $553.01 in after-hours electronic trading after edging up 0.4 percent in regular trading. - CBS News Story
No comments:
Post a Comment