Stocks fall as automaker plans are rejected

Wall Street’s big March rally was officially on hold Monday after the White House rejected turnaround plans from General Motors Corp. and Chrysler.

[efoods]All the major indexes fell more than 3.5 percent, including the Dow Jones industrial average, which lost as much as 300 points in midday trading.

Fears of an automaker bankruptcy have been looming over investors for months, and the latest developments, which included the removal of GM’s CEO Rick Wagoner, made the market even more uneasy about the industry.

However analysts said the pullback, which began Friday, wasn’t surprising after the Dow surged 21 percent over just 13 days.

The rally began in early March and was fueled by economic and corporate reports that were starting to look more encouraging. Now, investors were taking money out of the market ahead of economic numbers this week and first-quarter earnings in the weeks ahead, fearing that disappointing data will set the market back.

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This article was posted: Monday, March 30, 2009 at 12:09 pm

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