Falling oil prices put a drag on the stock market for the first day of August. Oil prices closed 3.7% lower at $40.06 per barrel after briefly dropping below $40. The big topic over the weekend was whether the Glass-Steagall Act should be brought back and if so, what would it mean to the financial markets. The Glass–Steagall Act, also known as the Banking Act of 1933, was passed by Congress in 1933 and prohibited commercial banks from engaging in the investment business. It was enacted as an emergency response to the failure of nearly 5,000 banks during the Great Depression. It had originally been put into place to establish a fire-wall between commercial and investment banking. The legislation was repealed in 1999 by President Clinton. The idea of resurrecting Glass-Steagall was brought up during the GOP convention. A report from Keefe, Bruyette & Woods took an in depth review of what resuscitating it would mean to the markets. See more below.
Here are the final numbers from Monday, August 1st on Wall Street:
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 18,404.51 (-27.73 / -0.15%)
NASDAQ: 5,184.20 (+22.07 / +.43%)
S&P 500: 2,170.83 (-2.76/ -0.13%)
