Stocks Take A Deep Plunge: The Dow Is Under 8,600

Thursday afternoon panicked investors dumped stocks across the board bringing the Dow nearly 700 points lower.

Pessimism about the economic outlook helped stocks drop dramatically as people acted on fear even though the Federal Reserve had coordinated a rate cute with other banks around the world. The rate cut was the last step by the government to unfreeze the credit markets and get banks to start lending again. The financial crisis has gotten bigger with the lack of cash making it harder for businesses to function on a daily basis and for consumers to get loans, making the financial crisis harder.

The Treasury Department said it was looking into buying stakes in some of the country’s banks. This move would come under the $700 billion bank bailout that was enacted last week. The main focus of the bailout remains buying bad assets from banks.

A year ago today, the S&P 500 hit an all time high of 1565.15. As of Wednesday’s close it had lost 37%