10 February 2009: Geithner's bank plan sinks stocks
New Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner unveiled a financial stability plan meant to restore confidence in battered banks. Investors had hoped for specifics; they got a broad outline. The Dow fell 382 points and the S&P 500 dropped nearly 5% while he was still talking, more or less. Bank stocks fell hardest. The plan later evolved into stress tests that helped, but first impressions were brutal.
The lesson: Markets hate uncertainty more than bad news, and a plan without details is mostly uncertainty.
Could you have called it at the time? The wheel picks the year, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick.
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