Dow Plunges Almost 300 Points: Acadiana Business Index

No dancing on Wall Street, as the Fed introduces its latest plan of financial engineering, while the Dow falls almost 300 points. Mark Lasseigne fills you in on the latest on Wall Street.

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 284 points to 11,125.
• The Federal Reserve today took another unconventional step to boost an economy. The Fed’s newest plan, is to sell $400 billion dollars in short term Treasury bonds, and buy $400 billion dollars of longer term Treasuries.  The move has been dubbed "Operation Twist", taken from a similar program tried with mixed results by the Fed and the U.S. Treasury in 1961, and named after Chubby Checker’s hit in 1960.  The idea behind the plan is that holding more long-term debt will push interest rates down even further, and make credit cheaper.
•  Additionally, the Fed said that it will roll the money int the mortgage-backed securities it owns, into additional securities to keep mortgage rates low.
• Crude oil settled at $86.03 a barrel.
•  Gold closing at $1,809/ounce.