A Couple Of Relatively Quiet Days On Wall Street
- On Monday we had a mid afternoon swoon as the impetus from the Fed move began to wear off. But markets recovered on news of a Tuesday morning meeting between Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Paulson and Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd.
- The most notable action of the week has been in T-Bills. In a sign of a flight to quality and away from commercial paper and money market the 3-month T-Bill had a huge rally on Monday. They sold off some today after Senator Dodd reported on his meeting with Bernanke saying the Fed Chief was “absolutely” prepared to “use all the tools at his disposal” to deal with the current turmoil in the credit markets.
- Oil closed below $70 a barrel today for the first time in a while as Hurricane Dean seemed likely to miss the Gulf of Mexico and was downgraded to a Category 1 storm (subscription required).
- A court of appeals temporarily stayed Whole Foods acquisition of Wild Oats to give it some time to review the FTC’s case against the merger. The companies will file a brief tomorrow and the FTC will have until noon EST Thursday to respond (subscription required).