The 5 Dumbest Things on Wall Street: Sept. 24

5. BP Oil Spill? Hey, No Big Deal. It's All Cool. Here's a pop quiz for you: Do you remember, a few months ago, when a little company called BP BP spilled some oil in the Gulf of Mexico? Not too much. Only about 205 million gallons. Made the news for a few months. You might have heard of it. Well, back in June, Dow Jones and boutique investment management firm SAM apparently remembered, and they removed BP from the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes. Given that whole Gulf-of-Mexico, rig-explosion, loss-of-life-ending-in-environmental-catastrophe thing, it seemed a reasonable decision. But apparently -- or outrageously, depending on your point of view -- BP's removal from the list left the door open for its partners in slime to join the earth-friendly club. That's right, Dow Jones and SAM thought it would be a great idea to go ahead and extend invitations to Halliburton HAL and Nalco NLC to join the index. Continue reading the article.