Wall Street: Down, Down, Down

Summer was almost over, and there was a chill on Wall Street. At the New York Stock Exchange, Dow-Jones industrials started last week at 804.62, and fell 12.59 points for a tenth consecutive Monday loss. Tuesday, the industrials slipped another 1.89 points on the largest single-day volume (9,830,000 shares) in three months. On Wednesday came a 9.41-point rally—only to be followed by two days of loss that wiped out the gain. Ending the week at 780.56, the industrials thus showed a five-day loss of 24.06 points (and a two-week drop of 59.97) and stood as low as they have...