US stocks were unchanged at the opening today as anxious investors mulled their next move after the threat of a global recession in the wake of last week's terror attacks.
The attacks on the World Trade Center in New York's financial district slammed the market to nearly three-year lows yesterday.
All three major market gauges had opened higher, but quickly lost steam. The Nasdaq Composite Index shed 1.53 points, or 0.1 per cent, to 1,578.02 a few minutes after the opening bell. The tech-rich index sank almost 7 per cent to its lowest level since mid-October 1998 yesterday.
The Dow Jones Industrial average dipped 13.01 points, or 0.15 per cent, to 8,907.69, after dropping more than 7 per cent yesterday, pushing the blue-chip gauge to its lowest finish since late 1998.
The broad Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 2.66 points, or 0.26 per cent, at 1,036.11, after hitting its lowest close since mid-October 1998.
The frantic selling of a day appeared to have subsided, but investors struggled to discern their next move after last week's attacks on the Trade Center and the Pentagon, outside of Washington, blackened the outlook for the economy and the nation.
Investors dumped stocks and triggered the biggest point drop ever for the Dow yesterday, the first day of trading after last Tuesday's attacks shut markets for the longest period since the Great Depression.
But the market's drop did not make the top 10 percentage declines and amounted to less than one-third of the harrowing drop on Black Monday, October 19th, 1987 - bringing some sense of relief to traders who expected a worse rout.