3. October 13, 2008
We Are the World -- Global Effort Shores Up Financials
Dow 9,387 (up 936 points); trading range, 1,039 points
The Dow notched its single-largest point gain ever (936 points), and largest percent gain since 1933, on the heels of a global effort to shore up the financial markets.
The Fed and other central banks announced plans to provide as much dollar liquidity as possible to the short-term funding markets. The Fed was expected to reveal its comprehensive plan later, which would inject $250 billion to spur interbank lending, and include bank debt guarantees. (The results of the Fed's action can be seen on Page 4.)
In other news, Morgan Stanley (MS) completed its own global initiative to shore up its balance sheet by accepting a $9 billion capital infusion from Japan's Mitsubishi UFJ Financial, giving the company a 21% stake in the venerable Wall Street firm.
