MICHELE NORRIS, Host:
From NPR News, this is All Things Considered. I'm Michele Norris. When we came to work this morning, we were stealing ourselves for another turbulent day on Wall Street. Global Markets took another huge hit overnight and the Dow dropped more than 500 points in early trading. But on the 79th Anniversary of the beginning of the 1929 Stock Market crash, the news could have been worse, much worse. The Dow eventually closed down just over 300 points and my co-host Robert Siegel has been in New York all week. And today, he returns to the epicenter of the financial crisis.
ROBERT SIEGEL: We began this week in New York on Monday morning in the trading room of Tradition Asiel Securities with Will Aston-Reese, who watches the market as the world's biggest banks try to borrow some money from the rest of the world's biggest banks. And Will, on Monday, and for the first time in a few days, things were moving a little big, by your standards are really small about $300 million. Today, by the end of the week, any change?
WILL ASTON: We did see quite a bit of flow all during the week, although today has been an exception to that. Most was concentrated in the 3- and 4-month area, and it was the same money center banks who will be participating in the treasury program for the capital infusion who were the sellers.
SIEGEL: Well, next week, what's the thing you're going to be looking for here in the trading room to see if there really is some improvement?
ASTON: I would like to see the money market funds coming in and buying more aggressively.
SIEGEL: If you had your pick this week of the ups and downs of this room and you're watching the interbank lending or being on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and watching stock prices, which one is easier on the body this week?
ASTON: I think we're all fairly the same bozos on the same bus here. We're all going through the same thing. I don't want to discount what they're going through nor do I want to discount what any of us are going through here.
SIEGEL: Well, Will Aston-Reese at Tradition Asiel Securities, thanks for talking with us again about bank lending and I won't use the word you've used to describe the folks we're going to talk to next.
ASTON: Thank you very much, although I did lump myself in that same category.
SIEGEL: Well, from Will Aston-Reese and the trading room at Tradition Asiel Securities, we came here to the floor of the New York Stock Exchange with Ted Weisberg who is a trader here, and you know, I'm struck being here, Ted, surrounded by all of the screens and the numbers. It's a little hint of comparison to a big casino out in Vegas, maybe even Atlantic City, you know it feels a little bit like that.
TED WEISBERG: Well, I mean, I can understand why you would make that comparison but there is a huge difference. At least in Las Vegas, they feed you and they give you entertainment. Here, there is no booze and there is no food. It's just trading and the amount of money on the table is a lot greater, I think, than it is in Las Vegas.
SIEGEL: And the trading today began with its big sell of after the futures were way down and there were big declines in Europe and Asia, and in the end, it didn't turn out to be a catastrophic day.
WEISBERG: Well, it's not a catastrophic day but is still not a good day. I mean, we're still down 200 points, and no matter how you slice it, people's portfolios are basically being decimated like raindrops on a hot summer day because of this continued bare market that were in, and that is, of course, very disturbing, but this cloud too shall pass and the sun will come out again and life will go on and we'll be just fine.
SIEGEL: Well, Ted Weisberg of Seaport Securities, thank you very much for talking with us.
WEISBERG: Thank you. And the time we were here, in 5 minutes we've sold off a hundred points.
SIEGEL: Just by talking to me, you drove the market down 100 points, right?
WEISBERG: Apparently, you and I said something that was not interpreted very positively.
SIEGEL: Let's see where it is when it closes.
WEISBERG: You want to walk in. Come on over and so you can get a good shot of the bell.
SIEGEL: And by the time the (unintelligible) came down, 300 points down (unintelligible).
WEISBERG: So I guess in terms of a De Barco(ph) which is what most people were anticipating, it is some sort of victory but down 300, it's still down 300 and it's not going to make anybody feel any better when they look at their portfolios over the weekend.
SIEGEL: Ted, have a good weekend.
WEISBERG: Thank you, you too. Thank you.
NORRIS: My co-host Robert Siegel at the New York Stock Exchange talking with Ted Weisberg, president of Seaport Securities. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
