Doesn't the Dow have built in safeties to prevent a major fall...

[cynatnite]

like dropping over five or six hundred points? I thought I read a long time ago that if it drops so low they will suspend trading.

[ORDagnabbit]

1. dontcha just love a "free" market. ;)

[xultar]

2. Aren't those safetys cheating in a way?

[JHB]

8. Yeah, how dare they limit the free market...

...those commie bastids running the Exchenge! :evilgrin:

[ruiner4u]

3. Yup it does..

It suspended a few years ago...

[Stinky The Clown]

4. I think it triggers on a percentage fall, not the number of points.

The points don't matter as much as they once did. 100 points on a 15,000 Dow is VERY different than 100 points on a 1,000 point Dow.

[truebrit71]

6. 10% is the magic number.

It's no longer predicated on the points but the percentage...

http://www.nyse.com/press/circuit_breakers.html

[ChairmanAgnostic]

10. market "correction" is the usual subject

we now know that 1929 could have been prevented. We came close to preventing it now, but Bush insisted on loosening the protections that were created after 29.

[ruiner4u]

9. Exactly....

300 points on the dow, while interesting, isnt the end of the world....


300 points on the S&P...that would be scarey..

[radfringe]

5. yeah, there's a big machine thingy

deep in tunnels beneath Wall Street...

problem is only Greenspan knows how it works... ;)

[MonkeyFunk]

7. Yes

there are curbs put in if the market falls 10%. Today's drop isn't close to that.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

11. It's Just A Cooling Off Period...

I think the Dow lost 27% in October of 87 and was down by about 40% mid day before the bottom feeders came in...

[RB TexLa]

12. Didn't the Dow only fall like 2%?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

13. Yeah...

A seven or eight hundred point drop would get my attention...

A ten percent drop is a "correction"...