Business

Dow Drops 513 Points, Biggest One-Day Loss Since 2008

Weak economic data has spooked markets, sending the Dow down 275 points

By John Hudson
Saved Stories
This article is from the archive of our partner .

Update 4:19 p.m. EST: Folks took to Twitter immediately after markets closed on one of the worst days for the stock market since the financial crisis.

  • "This is a sell-off like we haven't seen since November of 2008," said CNN's Poppy Harlow (via Brian Stelter).
  • "How much qualifies as a crash?" wondered Guardian U.S. editor Janine Gibson
  • "A bonified market crash: Dow -504," said Business Insider founder and veteran investor Henry Blodget.
  • "Uh, happy birthday, Mr. President," wished David Beard, digital editor of National Journal.

Update 4:06 p.m. EST: At close, the Dow was down 513 points, or 4.3 percent, "erasing all its gains in 2011" according to The Wall Street Journal.

Update 3:57 p.m. EST: The Dow continues to sink and went down as much as 515 points. Jake Tapper says this is the "biggest 1-day drop" since December 1, 2008 when the Dow plummeted 679 points.

Update 2:42 p.m. EST: The Dow hit a low of over 400 points down "with equities in the U.S. and Europe tanking, oil and gold falling, and short-term Treasury yields actually turning negative as money scrambles into anything deemed safe," according to Agustino Fontevecchia at Forbes.

Update 1:25 p.m. EST: Drifting downward after a brief reprieve, the Dow is now down 295 points.

Update 12:56 p.m. EST: The Dow remains low, down 275 points.

Update 12:18 p.m. EST: Stopping its free fall but remaining low, the Dow is now down 307 points. Peter Schroeder at The Hill notes that the Dow "has lost more points in the last two weeks than it did after the House initially failed to approve a bailout of U.S. banks at the height of the financial crisis in 2008."

In another rocky day on Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average plunged more than 341 points on fears that the global economic recovery is stalling. According to CNN Money "All the three major indexes are down at least 8% from their recent July peak, nearing official 'correction' territory (losses of 10% or more from recent highs)." The losses coincided with slumps in European stocks: Britain's FTSE 100 fell 3 percent, Germany's DAX fell 3.1 percent and France's CAC 40 fell almost 2.5 percent. The drops is being attributed to new gloomy economic data. "Early Thursday, the latest reading on jobless claims showed a large number of Americans remain unemployed. But economic woes weren't contained just to the United States," reports CNN. "Taking dramatic steps to shore up their financial markets, Japan's government stepped in to weaken the yen, and the European Central Bank decided to re-enter the European bond market." Bloomberg reports that investors are moving their money into safer bets such as gold, Treasuries and the Swiss franc and yen. “The mood right now is gloomy,” Mike Ryan, the chief investment strategist at UBS Wealth Management Americas tells Bloomberg. “The burden of proof is for better data that show the economy is not falling into recession. Tomorrow’s payroll report is crucial. If we see another disappointment, the stock market will have significant downside from here.”

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.