The Dow Jones Industrial Average loses more than 500 points as U.S. markets
fall for fifth straight day, even as a small group of protesters continue to
rail against the U.S. administration's bailout package for Wall Street.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (OCTOBER 7, 2008) REUTERS-
U.S. stocks cratered on Tuesday (October 7) and gold prices soared
as moves by European and U.S. central bankers to implement emergency measures
to shore up the financial system failed to stave off panic that a deep
recession is looming.
A more than 500-point decline in the Dow Jones industrial average
capped the biggest five-day point loss ever for the blue chip index. It has
lost more than 1,400 points over the past five sessions, nearly 13 percent of
its value.
The sharpening stock market losses renewed the bid for safe-haven
securities, with the price of U.S. government debt paring or erasing losses.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, in a dramatic shift to support
the battered economy, signaled a readiness to cut interest rates and the Fed
stepped forward as a commercial lender of last resort.
The Fed's announcement of a new program to buy short-term unsecured
debt led investors to unwind the heavy safe-haven buying of government debt
that was seen on Monday.
For economist Maria Ramirez, of the global consulting firm MFR, the
fed's action and Bernanke's comments were an admittal of a recession.
"I think the Fed has basically agreed with what has been a
consensus feel emerging more recently, in recent weeks, that we are in a
recession," Ramirez told Reuters. "I think admitting that the risk
is more on the down side is really where the market has been already for
several weeks in pricing itself to a recession and to pour earnings before
profitability for the next several quarters."
The five-day slide through Tuesday has sliced 1,400 points off the Dow,
the biggest cumulative point loss on record for the iconic barometer of U.S.
equity markets, Reuters data shows.
The Dow Jones industrial average sank 508.39 points, or 5.11 percent,
to end unofficially at 9,447.11. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index lost
60.64 points, or 5.74 percent, to finish unofficially at 996.25, its first
close below the 1,000 mark since September 2003. The Nasdaq Composite Index
dropped 108.08 points, or 5.80 percent, to close unofficially at 1,754.88.

"I think the market is totally confused about, not only all these
measures going on, but I think there's a lot of uncertainty about what are the
problems there are that haven't been quantified yet. It may take a long time
before they're really known in the public eye," Ramirez said.
To add to Wall Street's woes on Tuesday, a protest emerged outside the
New York Stock Exchange, in which sixty or so people railed against the
bailout package. CODEPINK Women for Peace, a women's activist group, organized
the colorful protest. They decried the redistribution of taxpayers' money away
from social programs.
CODEPINK spokeswoman Dana Balicko explained the motivations for the
protest.
"Protesting the bailout; protesting the billions more for Wall
Street, for the friends of Henry Paulson - of the Bush Administration; and
recognizing with all that money going for the bailout, there was going to be
way less money to go for any of the social issues, social programs that
actually stabilize our society," said Balicko.
The CODEPINK organized protest on Wall Street is one of the several
that have occurred in recent days.