Stocks Plunge 600, Rebound

Stocks continued their rocky ride this morning, plunging more than 600 points after the opening bell before rebounding, reports the Wall Street Journal. The Dow, in what the Journal calls a “slow-motion crash,” was down about 250 points after the first hour. The Nasdaq and S&P followed similar paths. Today's developments followed huge losses overseas, as Japan’s Nikkei fell 9.6%, Germany’s DAX fell 9.8%, and the Vienna exchange took a trade-suspending 10% hit.

“It's very clearly a crash,” said one Singapore-based holdings executive. “People are selling everything no matter what the fundamentals. It's forced liquidation.” Financial stocks paced US declines, with Morgan Stanley down 25% and Goldman Sachs down 15%. GE rose 0.6% despite announcing a 22% drop in third-quarter profits. Signs that markets were risk averse were rampant: treasury bills fell, while gold rose sharply and the dollar strengthened. (More stock market stories.)