Another wild ride on Wall St.

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Jan 24, 2008 | by Madlen Read Associated Press

NEW YORK -- It started with another stomach-turning drop at the open, and a loss of more than 300 points by midday. Then stocks changed course, raced higher and closed with a dramatic gain of nearly 300.

This wasn't just volatility. This was Wall Street whiplash.

Amid tumbling housing prices, an ongoing credit crisis and growing fears of a recession, turbulence has become a hallmark of Wall Street in recent weeks. But after five straight days of pullbacks, analysts saw some positive signs in Wednesday's trading.

Investors found a reason to buy, perhaps encouraged by the Federal Reserve's unprecedented 0.75-point interest rate cut a day earlier and a widely held bet on another half-point cut next week.

By day's end, the Dow had swung 631.86 points from its low point to its high -- the largest single-day turnaround in more than five years.

"You might say this is a belated reaction to what the Fed did this week, compounded by hopes for the Fed to do more next week," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Avalon Partners.

The Dow had plunged more than 465 points just after the opening bell Tuesday, as the market digested news of the rate cut. But stocks rallied to finish down just 128 on Tuesday, then tacked on a 2.5-percent gain on Wednesday.

The Dow Jones industrial average finished Wednesday up 298.98 at 12,270.17. It had been down 323.29 at its low point.

The swing from negative to positive territory of 631.86 points was the largest point move since July 24, 2002, according to Dow Jones Indexes. The largest intraday point swing, a metric that Dow started calculating in 1995, was a 721-point swing on April 14, 2000.

"Volatility is certainly the norm now and not the exception," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Jefferies & Co.

He noted that all but two trading days this year had seen triple- digit swings in the Dow, three of them 300 points.

"What has happened is the Fed is flooding the system with liquidity, and eventually we should see some traction in the economy. And stocks tend to respond first," said Steve Goldman, chief market strategist at Weeden & Co.

Still, analysts were mindful that in recent months Wall Street has been known to soar one day and succumb the next, and that there are still many economic unknowns for the market to weather. And given that stocks are so badly beaten down, bargain hunting played a part in Wednesday's turnaround.

Before Wednesday's session, the Dow had fallen nearly 10 percent since the start of the year.