has on previous case. you can end up getting what these things mean. in the end, we know he is critical in the hospital behind me here tonight. nbc s keir simmons reporting from pretoria, south africa, thanks so much. want to follow this market alert. the dow dropping some 233 points, growing worries over a possible credit squeeze in china has produced this. again, the markets down. we ve been watching this below 230 and the markets there as you see at 14564. we re going to keep an eye on that and back with much more. this is msnbc. untry is that we get to create our future. you get to take ownership of the choices you make. the person you become. i ve been around long enough to recognize the people who are out there owning it.
thanks for your time. thanks. have a great day. a market alert, folks. the dow continues to plunge today. it is down 244 points. it picked up a little. at one point it was down around 300. s&p 500 and nasdaq also down. all of this volatility after the italian prime minister said he would step down after parliament approves his reform bill. the end now of a colorful leadership there. nbc s chief correspondent richard engel joining me on the phone from rome. richard, good afternoon to you. reporter: good afternoon. italy s economy has almost been in free fall the last 24 hours or so. berlusconi said he would resign, but he didn t say exactly when. he said he would resign after the country, after parliament specifically passes his series of reforms. a lot of people don t take
spending, lower taxes, and not compromise with democrats. so that s why you re seeing this just the day after they walked outside of the west wing and said very nice things about one another. that s why you re seeing these competing impulses and statements today. quite a contrast. very much different than it was the day before. thank you, mike. we ve got a market alert. the dow is up more than 200 points. the reason for this surge, an official said the u.s. would be ready to back a larger european financial stability fund. the growing crisis has sunk markets in recent weeks, making any step towards resolution important to sustain market recovery. the dow up 243 points now. developing now, amtrak train service is being disrupted along the northeast corridor. the problem, overhead wire damage near newark, new jersey. it s not known if the damage was caused by a train or the weather we re experiencing in the northeast. amtrak service into and out of penn station in new york has been
tension we re seeing this year. thank you very much. just another note here on how the tea party has operated this year. don t forget, sharon angle won her primary in nevada, and they said this would make harry reid a shoe-in for re-election. not so according to latest poll. harry reid has pulled into the lead by two points, and she is the tea party-backed candidate in nevada. we ll have to see how that shakes out for the midterm elections. market alert, business inventories jumped in july by the largest amount in two years. that s at the same time consumers are buying more. retail sales saw the biggest gain last month since march. the commerce department says retail sales were up almost a half percent in august. let s check the markets right now, dow jones is up 36.32. the s&p popped up almost five points. the nasdaq is up on the day a little more than 15.
selection. also efforts under way to contain the oil spill. the huge box they lowered did not work. what s the plan now. market alert, dow up 389 points. now that a trillion dollar bailout for new york has been announced. we ll get more details ahead right here on msnbc. the smell of home made chili