4. September 15, 2008
See You Later, Lehman
Dow 10,917 (down 504 points); trading range, 566 points
Wall Street greeted a new week with more turmoil in the financial sector leading the S&P 500 to its largest one-day percentage drop since 9/11.
During the weekend before the session, Lehman Brothers (LEHMQ) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Merrill Lynch (MER) sold itself to Bank of America (BAC) for $50 billion and AIG (AIG) began looking for massive amounts of cash to save itself from failure.
Lehman gave up the ghost after no buyers were willing to step up to save the 158-year-old firm, and the company listed $613 billion in debt. Meanwhile, the feds told AIG to look elsewhere for $40 billion to shore up its balance sheet, leading many to suspect it would take much more cash to set things straight.
They were right -- we’re currently at $150 billion and counting.
