Economic Outlook: History in the making

A historic year on Wall Street has a likely capstone event with Monday's presidential address from the Federal Hall in New York.

U.S. President Barack Obama is scheduled to speak at 26 Wall Street Monday at the site of George Washington's inauguration in 1789 and the birthplace of the Bill of Rights.

Obama will be charging, it could be said, into the lion's den 364 days after the sudden failure of Lehman Brothers, a collapse that has come to symbolize the catastrophic financial year in which the U.S. and global economies came whispers away from a repeat of the Great Depression.

It might be argued the government has bought its way to a few concessions. After a $700 billion bailout of financial firms, auto companies and others deemed "too big to fail," Obama will press the case for regulatory reform, pushing for changes he proposed in June, including formation of a consumer-oriented financial products protection agency and enhanced powers for the Federal Reserve.

Presidential adviser Lawrence Summers and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner have been setting the stage for Obama lately, Geithner saying "fundamental change is necessary," The Washington Post reported Monday. Summers, in a recent interview, said, "this crisis will leave a legacy of strengthened regulation," the Post said.

As a backdrop, Wall Street has gone through a sharp whiplash in the past 365 days, going from bad to very bad October to March and shifting into recovery mode from March to August. While stocks recover, the government's extraordinary measures have made it 80 percent owner of American International Group, the county's largest insurer; 60 percent owner of General Motors Co., the country's largest automaker; and owner to various degrees of Citigroup, Bank of America, Chrysler, and dozens more with bailout funds on their ledgers.

Anyone feeling left out can refer to the $787 billion stimulus package passed in January designed to jump start an economy has lost nearly 6 million jobs since December 2007 when the recession officially began.

The Dow Jones industrial average on Sept. 15, 2008, closed down 504.48 points to 10,917.51. The Standard & Poor's index lost 59 points to 1,192.70. The Nasdaq index lost 81.36 points to 2,179.91.

The DJIA closed at 9,605.41 Friday. The S&P 500 closed at 1,042.90. The Nasdaq closed at 2,080.90.

This week investors will be looking at August retail sales figures -- expected to rise less than 2 percent -- and consumer prices, which economists predict fell 1.7 percent. Reports on producer prices and the Empire State manufacturing index are due Tuesday.

In Asian markets Monday, the Nikkei 225 in Japan plunged 2.32 percent. The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong dropped 1.08 percent. The Singapore Straits Times dropped 1.54 percent, while the S&P/ASX in Australia fell 1.41 percent.

In midday trading in Europe, the FTSE 100 in Britain slid 0.73 percent. The DAX 30 in Germany dropped 0.88 percent. The CAC 40 in France lost 0.99 percent, while the pan-European DJStoxx 600 fell 1.16 percent.