The Dow's Worst Day of 2012 (^DJI, ^GSPC, HD)

The Dow's Worst Day of 2012

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDEX: ^DJI ) had its worst day of this year as no deal arose for the Greek austerity measures and bailout package.

Index	Change	Ending Value
Dow Jones Industrial Average	-89.23 [-0.69%]	12,801.23
S&P 500 (INDEX: ^GSPC )	-9.31 [-0.69%]	1,342.64

The Dow opened down as European leaders asked for more budget cuts from Greece before signing a second bailout. Eurozone leaders also are requiring that Greek lawmakers approve a budgetary reform package in parliament that includes pension cuts, improved tax collection, and sales of state assets. A vote is expected by the Greek parliament on Sunday.

The Greek bailout discussions have been ongoing for some time now as Greece tries to avoid defaulting on 14 billion euros in bonds due in March. Greece has 330 billion euros in aggregate debt. Investors are worried that if conditions in Greece and the rest of Europe continue to worsen, the U.S. will also experience a slowdown in growth. While Bernanke has vowed that the Fed will protect the U.S. financial system, a U.S. slowdown is still a possibility.

With the Greek debt deal in continued turmoil, 29 of the 30 Dow components finished down for the day. Home Depot (NYSE: HD ) was the lone bright spot, finishing up $0.06 (0.13%) to $45.33. There was no particular news that caused Home Depot to finish up for the day, but maybe the stock is still reacting to the Whitehouse Science Fair Marshmallow Cannon viral video, in which Home Depot was plugged by eighth-grader Joey Hudy. Home Depot gave investors a good year in 2011 with two dividend raises and a $3 billion buyback. Fool analyst Dan Caplinger believes Home Depot could be a prime beneficiary of a resurgence in the housing market.

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Report this Comment On February 11, 2012, at 3:05 AM, arunkumar1212 wrote:

hi
Report this Comment On February 11, 2012, at 3:07 AM, arunkumar1212 wrote:

Make your life into a giving. When I say a giving, it is not to be understood as an act. Giving as an act is a deception because, after all, what can you give? Everything that we have, including this body, we have taken from this planet. What we can give is only a paltry part of what we have taken. Giving as an act could be very deceptive and could turn ugly, but if your way of being is giving and your actions are only a manifestation of that, when you open your heart to give, grace invariably seeps in. That is inevitable.
It has been my fortune and privilege that at a very early age, I became witness to a certain state of giving -- my great grandmother who lived to be 113 years of age. In the morning, if she was given breakfast, she would always go about giving away at least two-thirds of it to the ants, birds and squirrels, particularly to the ants. People would say, ‘She is throwing all her food around, this old woman will die without eating,' but they all died while she lived. There were many days where I saw her with a little bit of breakfast that was left on her plate. She would simply sit there, watching the ants eat. Tears would be streaking down her cheeks and when somebody asked, ‘Won't you eat?’ she would say, ‘I'm full. I'm already full.’ It was many years later that I realized her way of transacting with the world. If the ants ate, she was being nourished. A logical mind would never understand this, but it was this nourishment which gave her an extraordinary longevity.