Yeah, seems like the Dow Jones took "Day of Atonement" a little too literally -- 678.91 point drop, down to 2003 levels and headed to worst percentage point drop since '31 status by year's end. Some insight, then, from the few locals left not burying their heads in a bottle of booze. Says James Barrow of Barrow, Hanley, Mewhinney & Strauss, which manages what used to be $50 billion in assets before the shit hit the fan: "Sellers are being forced to sell. You're unraveling the hedge-fund community completely, to the point that I assume 60 percent of them will fail."
To which Mark Freedman of Westwood Holdings Group adds that the market's in turmoil precisely because no one knows how long it'll be in turmoil. So, dig: "A lot of investors aren't sure how to factor that into their analysis. How does this play out?" (Till it hits zero, maybe?) And Dallas-based homebuilder Centex announced moments ago that it's withholding from stockholders their regular quarterly cash dividends until "economic conditions improve." Whoo-boy. --Robert Wilonsky
