The government's $85 billion bailout of insurer AIG two days after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers rattled investor confidence to send the markets plummeting to close sharply lower with the Dow collapsing 449 points to 10,610. Nasdaq skidded 109 points to 2099.
On the upside
Shares of gold producers Barrick Gold (NYSE: ABX), Goldcorp (NYSE: GG) and Kinross Gold (NYSE: KGC) surged as nervous investors sought stability in gold.
Broadpoint Capital upgraded Hoku Scientific (Nasdaq: HOKU) after the company announced a $227 million deal to provide polysilicon to Tianwei New Energy Wafer in China.
On the downside
Insurer Conseco (NYSE: CNO) revealed that it holds nearly $20 million in securities from Lehman Brothers, nearly $50 million from American International Group and $34 million from Washinton Mutual.
Shares of Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), maker of the iPhone, and BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM) tumbled after T-Mobile announced the September 23 launch of the first phone to be powered by Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) Android software.
Concerns that turmoil in the financial services sector will weigh down General Electric's (NYSE: GE) finance business unit sent shares of GE tumbling.
In the broad market, declining issues outpaced advancers by a margin of more than 13 to 1 on the NYSE and by nearly 6 to 1 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks plummeted 34 points to 676.
