Stock Market Headed For Disaster ?!!!!

Stocks plunged today, with the Dow Jones industrials briefly falling as much as 331 points & ending at levels not seen since April 1997. The slump was built on steep declines in financial stocks -- Citigroup briefly fell to 97 cents, & the fear that General Motors might collapse. At the same time, many investors around the world were disappointed that China did not announce an expansion to its economic stimulus program. The expansion had been expected & was a major reason why stocks rallied on Wednesday. The Dow finished down 281 points, or 4.1%, to 6,594, wiping out all of its gains on Wednesday & dropping to its lowest close since April 15, 1997. The blue chips were off 300 points on Monday. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was off 30 points, or 4.3%, to 683, its lowest close since September 1996. The Nasdaq Composite Index was off 54 points, or 4%, to 1,300, its first close below 1,300 since March 12, 2003. The sell-off sets Friday as potentially a very volatile day of trading. The government will report on U.S. unemployment & nonfarm payrolls before Friday's open. The consensus estimate is for the unemployment rate to hit 7.9%, up from 7.6% in January, & for payrolls to drop by 650,000.
So far this year, the Dow is down 25% & is off 53% since peaking in October 2007. The Dow, S&P 500 & the Nasdaq have fallen in 11 of the last 15 sessions. The sell-off in U.S. markets mirrored heavy selling in Europe & parts of Asia. The selling also sent many frightened investors to seek safety in U.S. government securities, gold & silver. Gold closed up $21.10 an ounce to $927.80; silver was up 21 cents to $13.12 an ounce. The yield on the 5-year Treasury note fell to 1.81% from 1.97% on Wednesday. The yield on the note has fallen more than one-tenth this week.
Crude oil fell in sympathy with the market, closing down $1.77, or 3.9%, to $43.61 a barrel. The drop pulled energy shares lower. Two of Tuesday's winners -- Caterpillar and Joy Global -- were down 7.7% to $23.49 & 4.9% to $16.69 after China disappointed investors by not announcing a second economic stimulus plan today.
Exxon Mobil (XOM, news, msgs) fell 5.3% to $62.22, subtracting nearly 28 points from the Dow. Chevron's (CVX, news, msgs) 4.8% decline to $56.46. pulled 22 points from the blue chips.