By Michael Ventura
DNAinfo Senior Editor
MANHATTAN — Stocks rebounded somewhat on Friday, a day after it dropped by more than 300 points amid bad job news, the Euro crisis and the Senate's passage of a financial reform bill.
The Dow Jones industrial average finished up 125 points to finish back above the 10,000 mark in a volatile day of trading on Wall Street.
Stocks continued to free fall early in the day, plummeting more than 100 points within the first few minutes after the opening bell. They rose steadily thereafter, and by mid-afternoon, they were up 45 points.
This comes a day after a 376 point drop on Thursday, when the Dow closed below 10,000 for the first time in weeks.
A vote by lawmakers in Germany to approve that country's part of the $1 trillion European bailout plan helped soothe investors, the New York Times reported. That plan is aimed at stabilizing the euro and helping nations recover from mounting debt.
Some analysts, though, attributed this week's volatility to a correction in the market, as an inflated belief in economic growth began to dissipate.
"When you have a market with that much froth in it, it doesn't matter what the catalyst is if the situation on Main Street doesn't match the view on Wall Street," Dan Alpert, managing partner at Westwood Capital, told the Wall Street Journal.
Meanwhile, the next steps in Congress following the U.S. Senate's passage of a financial reform bill were beginning to shake out.
The bill will have to be reconciled with a similar one passed by the House. One of the apparent points of contention will be over the role of the Federal Reserve. The House bill would allow the Government Accountability Office to audit emergency lending decisions made by the Fed, the Journal reported. The Senate bill only allows for audits as they relate to the recent financial crisis, not going forward.
Also, while both bills create a council of financial regulators, the House bill grants that body the authority to impose restrictions on various companies and the Senate bill gives that power to the Fed, the paper said.
Another conflict could arise over derivatives trading. The Senate bill has tougher restrictions on the complex financial deals, including forcing big bangs to spin off derivatives operations, the Journal said.
The bills also cover how to handle failing companies: the Senate bill would force them through bankruptcy-esque proceedings that could lead to the firm being broken up and sold off, and the House bill would make that process easier and allow regulators to bypass the courts, according to the Journal.
