U.S. stocks hard hit by GE's disappointing results (dow/s&p -2.04% nasdaq -3.4%)

Market Watch ^ | 04/11/08 | Kate Gibson

[TigerLikesRooster]

U.S. stocks hard hit by GE's disappointing results

Nasdaq fronts weekly decline, off 3.4%; Dow, S&P slump more than 2%

By Kate Gibson, MarketWatch

Last update: 4:37 p.m. EDT April 11, 2008Print E-mail RSS Disable Live Quotes

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stocks on Friday sunk to April lows and weekly losses, with the market undone by General Electric Co.'s earnings miss, jolting investors and casting a bleak light on a slew of earnings reports next week.

"GE never surprises us, and they had the whole month of March to let us know. All they had to say is, for the love of God, business is actually slow!" said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Jefferies & Co.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ($INDU) shed 256.56 points, or 2%, to end at 12,325.42, pulling the blue chips down 2.2% on the week.

Of the Dow's 30 components, all but one ended in the red. The decline was fronted by General Electric (GE) , with its shares suffering their worst one-day percentage drop since October 1987, losing 12.8% to end at $32.05.

The industry bellwether reported a 6% decline in first-quarter net profit, largely over trouble in its financial-services businesses. Read full story.

[M. Espinola]

Next week should prove a very interesting bearish week for Wall Street.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Considering Fed's recent behaviors, they would be likely to do something in order to arrest the big drop again.

[AndyJackson]

Considering Fed's recent behaviors, they would be likely to do something in order to arrest the big drop again.

Yet, the source of the problem, as we hear over and over again, is that the middle class does not have the wherewithall to keep up their end of the bargain, and yet the labor of the middle class, profits earned off of their labor, and the taxes generated from their labor is the origin of most of the wealth in the US.

But was Bernanke ever concerned about the health of the middle class? I don't think so. He is concerned about the health of the banks, and the ceo's who get $50M in bonuses the year before driving a primary dealer into the ground.

The source of the problem is that the folks running the "economic system" have become far more concerned about how much they get paid and far too unconcerned about the health of the capitalist arrangements that generate that pay.