Local brokers and financial planners were watching their computers with much of the same wonder as others Monday as Congress — refusing to pass the plan to take over devalued mortgage securities — kicked the stock market downstairs.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average of blue-chip stocks dropped more than 777 points, almost 7 percent, to close at 10,365.45. The Nasdaq composite and S&P 500 indexes dropped even more.

Gerry Finnegan, a certified financial planner in Lincoln, said he was doing more hand-holding than usual but wasn’t having to sell stocks out the way the market was.

And his customers weren’t rushing for the doors.

“They appreciate when you tell them what is going on,” he said. “To the degree they’re tuned into this, there’s a heightened nervousness, an awareness, shall we say?”

Eric Hemmingsen was sitting Monday at the same desk he occupied in 1987, when the market lost almost more than 20 percent of its value in one day.

“It wasn’t fun then, either,” Hemmingsen said, as he described Monday’s market as “a little bit of a panic.”

He talked to lots of customers Monday, but not to bail out of their stocks, he said.

“Mostly what people want, they want to know if there’s anything they need to be doing,” he said. “If they’ve done a good job of diversifying and they have good quality investment and haven’t changed objectives, then there’s nothing they need to be doing right now.”

He expects Congress will reconsider.

“I guess I have a lot of confidence in our economy and our economic system and that things will recover,” Hemmingsen said. “The question is how fast and when.”

Diane Rolfsmeyer, another financial planner, has what she calls “a very tiny practice,” a few devoted customers she’s dealt with for years.

She didn’t get a call from any of them, she said.

“We’ve built a tremendous relationship of trust,” she said. “Through this volatility, my clients have been buying (stocks) on dips. This is a wonderful opportunity here. … JPMorgan bought a bargain (the failed Washington Mutual). My clients are buying bargains.

“There’s an old story about keeping all the lights on. Keep that brain working. Stay calm. Most of these kinds of situations turn out to be opportunities. My job is to help my clients keep all the lights on. As part of that, I’ve been working with clients to live within their means, save as much as they could, invest in a diversified basis.”

Rolfsmeyer doubts the wisdom of what Congress has done.

“There are pros and cons to the decision whether to do the bailout,” she said. “The sorry fact, in my opinion, is that little by little, our financial situation was allowed to erode. It took a lot of time. I’ve never been in favor of subprime (mortgage) activity.

“I’ve never ever been able to figure out how anybody thought it was sane to take a loan for 125 percent of the value of your home,” she said.

Mortgages like that and other exotic forms are the devalued assets now clogging up the nation’s credit channels, according to the government, and are the illiquid assets the government would buy from various banks in the plan Congress rejected and the government says is necessary.

Rolfsmeyer, too, expects the plan to be revived in some way.

“I think it’s not dead,” she said. “It’s still going to be on the back of the taxpayer. There might be some safeguards. Looking at the market today is going to make everybody sit up and say we gotta do something.”

Not that she’s happy about who’s doing it.

“Whatever comes out of this is a bank and Wall Street bailout,” she said. “You’re talking (about) the very people responsible. The very word ‘bailout’ implies they have failed. It’s kind of like calling a hospital where there’s a huge malpractice suit and saying, ‘Let’s chat.’”

So for now, this looks like a reason to sit tight.

“I’ve been looking at the market in terms of purchases, but I kind of want to to see what Congress really does,” Rolfsmeyer said.

“We don’t know what tomorrow will bring.”

 Reach Richard Piersol at 473-7241 or at dpiersol@journalstar.com.