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Stocks fall as investors await bank bailout plan

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-09-23 00:01

NEW YORK -- Financial markets pulled back in uneasy trading Monday as investors awaited details of the government's plan to buy $700 billion in banks' mortgage debt.

Prime Minister of Kuwait, Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah (R) tours the floor of the New York Stock Exchange September 22, 2008.  Financial markets pulled back in uneasy trading Monday as investors awaited details of the government's plan to buy $700 billion in banks' mortgage debt. [Agencies]

The Dow Jones industrial average fell  more than 200 points while the credit markets remained nervous, but not showing the signs of panic that Treasury trading saw last week.

Investors are relieved that federal authorities are taking action to relieve the nation's banks of their toxic assets. But it is not sure yet how successful the plan will be in thawing credit markets, which many businesses depend on to fund day-to-day operations, and for propping up the still-weak housing market.

Bush administration officials and congressional leaders have been meeting on the rescue plan, the thrust of which congressional leaders have endorsed. Many market observers are hoping for details of the plan to emerge by midweek. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke are scheduled to appear before Congress on Wednesday for a briefing on the economy.

"For now I think the market is giving everyone the benefit of the doubt," said Axel Merk, portfolio manager at Merk Funds. "This is not an 'all is clear' signal that we have now."

While investors try to determine how helpful the government's lifeline might be they also were absorbing more news about the rapid changes in the banking sector. Morgan Stanley said it is working to sell up to a 20 percent stake to Japan's Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., perhaps a sign that the government's stabilizing hand will make investors more willing to put money into banks.

The announcement comes after the Federal Reserve late Sunday granted Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, the country's last two major investment banks, approval to change their status to bank holding companies. The change of status will allow the companies to set up commercial banks that will be able to take deposits, significantly bolstering the resources of both. They also will be subject to more regulation.

That shift came a week after negotiations failed to save Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. That and the government's plan to bail out American International Group Inc. helped lead to a seizing up of the credit markets that spurred the government to formulate its plan to rescue companies from their crippling debt.

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