Ten Tales Worth Remembering One

The week that was 10 astounding market facts from Wall Street's wildest week
By Nick Godt, MarketWatch
Last update: 3:52 p.m. EDT Sept. 20, 2008

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The stock market ended little changed on the week.
Not usually a newsworthy assessment for equities, but in context, that's a fact that would surely make the list of astounding market numbers for what may well be one of Wall Street's most tumultuous weeks on record.

Here's MarketWatch's top 10 items from this week's markets news:

1. On the heels of 158-year old investment firm Lehman Brothers declaring bankruptcy, the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Monday tumbled 504 points, its worst point drop since Sept. 17, 2001, when stocks reopened after the Sept.11 attacks.

2. Hopes on Thursday -- followed by confirmation on Friday -- of a big government plan to take over debt instruments linked to bad home loans leads the Dow industrials to their biggest two-day gains since March 2000.

3. Scrambling for the safe haven of government debt on Monday led yields on two-year Treasury notes to slump the most since Sept. 17, 2001, before jumping by the most in more than 20 years Friday, on the heels of the government's rescue plan.

4. On the New York Stock Exchange, trading volumes for all shares traded by the NYSE Group spiked to 4.2 billion on Thursday, the highest on record.

5. On Wednesday, the volatility index otherwise known as the market's fear gauge, spiked to 41.97 -- its highest level since August 2002, on the Chicago Board Options Exchange.

6. On the same day, gold jumped more than $70 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange, its biggest one-day jump in dollar terms since at least 1980. In electronic trading Friday, the precious metal then tumbled by more than $68, its biggest drop in 28 years.

7. Also on Wednesday, the Dow slumped to its lowest level since October 2005 as lending between banks around the globe nearly ground to a halt. The 3-month U.S. dollar London Interbank Offered Rate, or LIBOR, saw its biggest one-day jump in 9 years.

8. As emerging markets tumbled in unison with Wall Street early this week, Moscow's Micex index plunged more than 17% Tuesday, before surging nearly 30% Friday, its biggest one-day gain ever.

9. Crude oil futures dropped to a low of $90.80 per barrel this week, their lowest level since early February. They climbed back as high as $103.64 on Friday, their highest level since Sept. 10.

10. Oh, yeah. The Dow ended little changed on the week, while the S&P 500

Nick Godt is a MarketWatch reporter based in New York.

(source: www.marketwatch.com/news/story/ten-tales-worth-remembering-one/story.aspx?guid=%7b795F0A3A-9AAC-4432-80FE-472589A33F2A%7d&dist=hplatest&print=true&dist=printMidSection)