Look out below!
Wall Street's agonizing bear market plunged to new depths Wednesday amid more hand-wringing about the receding economy, the faltering auto industry and Washington's stop-and-go rescue efforts.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 5 percent as broader market measures gave up 6 percent or more. At 7,997.28, a drop of 427.47 points, the Dow finished below 8,000 for the first time since 2003.
"The environment is one where people are having a difficult time seeing where the bottom in the economy is," said Mark Mitchell, a portfolio manager at Security Global Asset Management in Topeka.
In that vein, Wednesday's release of minutes from the October meeting of the Federal Reserve showed that policymakers continued to ratchet down their expectations of the economy.
The ongoing financial crisis and worsening global growth prompted Fed officials to "mark down significantly their outlook for growth," according to the Fed minutes. "Participants generally expected the economy to contract moderately in the second half of 2008 and the first half of 2009, and agreed that the downside risks to growth had increased."
Private forecasts remain much weaker than the Fed’s.
Much of the uncertainty hangs on what becomes of the Big Three Detroit automakers, whose leaders spent a second day on Capitol Hill pleading for $25 billion from Uncle Sam.
Read the full story at KansasCity.com.
