Robert Diamond

It was a tumultuous week on Wall Street. Two weeks ago the Federal government took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That contributed to dramatic events last weekend: Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and Bank of America bought Merrill Lynch in a rushed transaction. The Dow Jones Industrial Average started the week at 11,422. A brief recap of the week:

9/15 Monday - DJIA down 504 (4.4%), reacting to the Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch events over the weekend. Concern mounting over AIG. (AIG owns Stowe Mountain Resort. One of its minor holdings.)

9/16 Tuesday - DJIA up 142 (1.3%) on news that the Federal government planned to bail out AIG. Volume on the New York Stock Exchange set a record. The AIG takeover, akin to the takeover of Fannie and Freddie, was completed Tuesday evening after markets closed.

9/17 Wednesday - DJIA down 449 (4.1%). The AIG takeover did not calm investors. An institutional money market fund, the Reserve Primary Fund, failed to maintain a $1 share price on Tuesday, sending tremors through the market. Another institutional money market fund, the Putnam Prime Money Market Fund, did not reopen after the close of business Wednesday. Volume on the New York Stock Exchange was the second highest in history, second only to Tuesday.

9/18 Thursday - DJIA up 410 (3.9%) on reports that the Federal government is planning a mechanism to take bad assets off the balance sheets of financial institutions.

9/19 Friday - DJIA up 369 (3.4%), helped by moves announced by the U.S. Treasury and the Fed to bolster money market funds and by the SEC to restrict short-selling. For the week, the DJIA was down just 34 (0.3%) to 11,388.

Click here for more info about the week.

The government's efforts to stanch the crisis and investors' euphoria at those actions capped a wild week which has permanently resculpted the landscape of Wall Street. (source)

Today's Wall Street Journal has an article about the handful of men who are the major players in these history-making events: Street Scenes: The Players Remaking Financial World. One of the men discussed in the article is Robert Diamond, president of Barclays Bank in England, which this week purchased a large portion of Lehman Brothers.

Robert Diamond is a graduate of Colby College and gave the commencement address at Brian's graduation last May.