This weekend, JP Morgan bought Bear Stears at $2 a share, for $236.2 million, reports Jeannine Aversa for the Associated Press.
The looming question on investors’ minds is whether Bear Stearns is just the first of many banks to fall. The Federal Reserve, for its part, is doing all it can to head off a total meltdown. It’s positioned itself as a lender of last resort for Wall Street investment houses, and cut its emergency lending rate by 0.25%, to 3.25%.
One financial ETF reaping the rewards of this tumble is the ProShares UltraShort Financials (SKF), which was up 7.5% in intraday trading. Year-to-date, it’s up 32.3%.