Street Shrugs Off Bailout OK

Investors were feeling finicky today, pushing stocks higher by 300 points after the House approved the revised $700 billion bailout, then reversing the gains and moving the major indices to sharp weekly losses, MarketWatch says. The Dow dropped 157.15 to 10,325.70. The Nasdaq lost 29.33, finishing at 1,947.39, and the S&P fared no better, losing 15.05 to 1,099.23.

Early approval of the House action morphed to doubt that the bailout would ease credit markets and thwart a recession, Bloomberg reports. “This is not a panacea, by any means,” one strategist told the Wall Street Journal.  But another said investors, borrowers and lenders can now shift “their outlook from what could go wrong to what could go right.” (More Wall Street stories.)