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American Morning

America's New War: Dow Opens at Lowest Level in Nearly Three Years

Aired September 24, 2001 - 09:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: You could actually hear the bell today, Andy Serwer. The Dow opening today at 8235, the lowest level in nearly three years. But you said there is some optimism on the horizon today because of futures and how they were performing.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: I think the rally we saw in Europe this morning, stocks were up across the board, transportation stocks, airline stocks, insurance stocks, will carryover to the United States, at least in the early going, at least I hope I'm right.

ZAHN: We'll continue to keep our eye on the right part of the screen here for the Nasdaq opening. At both the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq, you had representatives of the fire department in New York and both the New York Police Department there joining in.

We can see the Dow is up 24 points, the Nasdaq up 37. Kind of a nice, strong rally there on the Nasdaq.

SERWER: I'd like to continue to talk with you, Andy, as we await an appearance by President Bush today, on the heels of signing an executive order last night that freezes the U.S. assets of suspected terrorists, and the president will be joined by Colin Powell and Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill. But until that happens, we're going to get a slight warning.

ZAHN: Let's keep on chatting about what investors expect today. What in particular should be looking at?

SERWER: Well, I think what be have to look at is Wall Street is going to continue to try to sort things out. We are going to see retailing perhaps come under pressure this morning. Federated Department Stores saying that their store sales were down 20 percent since the attack began. And we're going to see continue rippling effects through the economy. We're going to see traders look at different sectors and try to discern how good or bad things are.

ZAHN: That is significant, because Federated includes Macy's. What are the other stores?

SERWER: Bloomingdales and Macy's are the two big ones.

ZAHN: Which gives you a big barometer on what people are doing right now, which is not shopping.

SERWER: Hard time to go out and shop now, when you're worried about your job, and you have to think about all these people getting laid off, retrenching, not going out and buying, and how that will impact companies and stores that sell TVs and cars. We see car dealers very quiet over the weekend.

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