Stocks plunge amid new Wall Street landscape
NEW YORK -- Stocks tumbled and Treasury bond prices soared today as investors reacted to a stunning reshaping of the landscape of Wall Street. A series of events took out two storied names Sunday: Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Merrill Lynch & Co.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 300 points in the early going.
Stocks posted big losses in markets across much of the globe as investors absorbed bankruptcy plans at Lehman and Merrill Lynch's forced sale to Bank of America for $50 billion in stock. And perhaps most ominously, American International Group Inc. is asking the Federal Reserve for emergency funding. The world's largest insurance company plans to announce a major restructuring Monday.
The swift developments are the biggest yet in the 14-month-old credit crises that stems from now toxic subprime mortgage debt.
In the first minutes of trading, the Dow fell 300.11, or 2.63 percent, to 11,121.88.
Broader stock indicators also fell sharply The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 17.83, or 1.42 percent, to 1,233.87, and the Nasdaq composite index fell 59.19, or 2.62 percent, to 2,202.08.
