The Dow Jones industrial average plunged 554.26 points, 7.18%, triggering two circuit breakers. It was the largest one-day point decline ever.
The first circuit breaker was invoked about 2:35 p.m. EST when the Dow fell 355 points from Friday's close to 7360. Trading on all exchanges and the Nasdaq was halted for 30 minutes. The second circuit breaker kicked in about an hour later, when the Dow fell another 199 points. NYSE officials halted trading for the day.
The Dow ended the day at 7161.15.
Also, the S&P 500 fell 64.67 points, to close at 876.97, and the Nasdaq composite dropped 116.89 points, to 1534.03.
The figures are preliminary closing numbers.
J.P. Morgan is acquiring The O'Connor Group, a real estate manager with $4.1 billion in U.S. tax-exempt assets under management. Terms of the deal are still pending and were not disclosed.
O'Connor focuses on separate account management. It would give J.P. Morgan a total of $16.6 billion in U.S. tax-exempt real estate assets under management, eclipsing market leader ERE Yarmouth, which had $14.4 billion as of June 30.
West Virginia Investment Management Board, Charleston, issued its expected RFP today for a consultant to develop an asset allocation for the pension fund and to provide trustee education, said Diana Will, CIO of the $4.3 billion fund.
The board will need to be taught about developing an asset allocation, risk management and other investment management issues, she said.
A survey of 31 U.K. pension funds revealed 90% think Britain should join the European monetary union, but only 10% think this should happen at EMU's formation Jan. 1, 1999.
Eighty percent think Britain should join EMU at a later date. Only 10% thought Britain should not join at all, according to the survey by Record Treasury Management.
Should Britain join EMU, half of the funds surveyed think their allocation to continental European equities would increase, while 43% said allocations to European bonds would rise.
Meanwhile, the U.K. government today rejected entrance into a single European currency during the current Parliament.
U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown told Parliament, however, ``we must prepare intensively'' so Britain could join early in the next Parliament should the euro prove to be a success.
Mr. Brown also reconfirmed the government's commitment to hold a public referendum on whether to enter into European economic and monetary union.
More than 1,000 CEOs of publicly traded companies are indicating broad acceptance of more active and independent boards, a new survey shows.
The survey by the National Association of Corporate Directors and Deloitte & Touche, to be released tomorrow, also shows most CEOs support wholly independent nominating, compensation and audit committees and agree directors should fully disclose all professional commitments and limit the number of corporate boards on which they serve.
The survey was cited today by Ira Millstein, partner with Weil, Gotshal & Manges, at the Investor Responsibility Research Center's 25th anniversary conference in Washington.
