Market down, so out they trot Joe Spirit Stick BATTIPAGLIA on cnbc to tell all the punters everything is all right with da market, buy buy buy....
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It's Tuesday, February 29, 2000 at 6 p.m. and the New York Stock Exchange is stone quiet and empty other than the crew from CNBC, the financial news network that camps at the exchange each evening to review the day on Wall Street.
The largely young, artsy producers and technicians sprawl on metal chairs, grazing on Oreos and trail mix and waiting for the broadcast to begin. Battipaglia greets the talent – Ron Insana and Sue Herera – both already coated in their waxy on-air makeup, and talks about children, spouses and upcoming vacation plans. He wanders restlessly around the exchange floor, eventually finding his way to a tall director's chair where he too is swathed in stage make-up by a black-clad make-up artist.
It's been a sizzling day on the NASDAQ, which topped 5,000 for the first time in early day trading, and Battipaglia has fielded calls from reporters and producers all day. He wades between the tangle of wires and cameras and sits next to Insana. A production assistant clips a tiny microphone inside his jacket and the countdown to airtime begins.
Six weeks later, during the second week of April, all three major market measures suffered their worst point drops ever, wiping out $950 billion in a single day, just shy of Brazil's $1 trillion gross domestic product.
On Friday, April 14, the Nasdaq Composite Index, led by Qualcomm Inc. and Intel Corp., fell 355.49 points. The 9.67 percent drop was the Nasdaq's second worst, just behind the 11 percent free fall on Oct. 19, 1987 and capping the worst week in the much-watched index's 29-year history.
In a lineup of interviews from the Today show to CNBC, Battipaglia was once again called upon to dissect the market free fall, and to calm investors' rapidly rising fears.
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Alas, poor Yorick, some things never change! |
