Cheat Sheet

Stocks took their third beating of the week today, on Best Buy’s warning of a “seismic” slowdown and a report American Express would seek billions in government aid. The Dow retreated 410.67 points to close at 8,283.29, while the Nasdaq sank to a five-year low of 1,499.21. Energy companies dropped 7.2 percent on the S&P 500, with oil dropping to $56.16 a barrel ahead of a report tomorrow that is likely to show a decrease in US energy demand. “It’s hard to get away from the drumbeat of negatives,” Liam Dalton of Axiom Capital Management tells Bloomberg. Best Buy’s forecast cut, he added, is “a further sign of the retrenchment of the consumer and spending that’s slowing very, very rapidly across the board.”