It did not take long for Wall Street to react to the decision of the House to reject a proposed $700 billion financial bailout package that is supported by the Bush administration, the Federal Reserve and congressional leadership of Democrats and Republicans. The vote was 207 for and 226 against the plan, with the main criticism being that the bailout package would provide unjustified support to the companies that created the crisis.

Both the NASDAQ and Dow Jones were hit hard by the decision. While the Dow tumbled 700 points initially and quickly recovered to a loss of about 500 points, the tech-heavy NASDAQ index lost more than 140 points or 6.5%.

Apple was leading the decline in the tech sector, with a stock that was down about 19%. AMD followed with a minus of almost 17%, Google with 11%, Nvidia with almost 10%, Sun with 9%, Intel with 6%, Microsoft with 6%, HP with 6%, Yahoo with 5%, and Dell and IBM with 4%.