Manic “Marathon” Monday: Dow Falls 290 Points
April 20th, 2009

Marathon Monday is perhaps the best day of the year to enjoy Boston sports. Today features a fun-filled day that starts with the running of the marathon, continues with a Red Sox game, and is capped off by a Celtics playoff home game — what’s better than that!. I didn’t get a chance to watch the marathon today, but I did see some running. The running I saw was that of stock market investors running to the sidelines on the back of renewed fear surrounding financial stocks. As a result the Dow dropped 290 points and financial stocks were absolutely crushed. Below are the highlights from the day’s action:
- Bank of America reported solid profits but indicated that loan problems were persisting and even getting worse.
- There was increased scrutiny on Citigroup’s surprise quarterly profit, which seemed to come more from shrewd accounting than a sharp rebound in its core businesses. Goldman Sachs noted that Citigroup’s credit losses were growing at a “rapid rate” and put a price target on the stock at $1.50.
- Last night, the Turner Radio Network published what it claimed was a “leak” of the Treasury stress tests. They didn’t actually publish a document, just a summary and in short they said the stress tests showed the entire banking system was stunningly insolvent.
- The NY Times published an article stating that to in order to provide continued assistance to banks without having to petition Congress for more TARP funds, the U.S. may convert the preferred shares they own in banks as a result of TARP to common stock, similar to what they have done with Citigroup.
- The Financial Times was out saying that the U.S. was going to place additional conditions on those banks who plan to repay TARP funds. As a result, the market is likely to punish “bad” banks who have not repayed TARP and reward “good” banks that do.


















Marathon good, Red Sox not, love Celtics, but not their year.