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US stocks slump; Dow briefly plunges 1000 points

The Dow Jones industrial average has plunged more than 530 points and is in a correction amid a global sell-off sparked by fears about China’s slowing economy. Shares of General Electric and Pepsi crashed more than 20% apiece at one point, while Costco fell 16%.

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Strategists said that there was no obvious catalyst for the late sell-off, suggesting that investor confidence is still fragile after a series of big sell-offs. “Typically, it takes some time to really find the bottom (in the market)”.

“We continue to believe that the global economy, and the U.S.in particular, remains sound”, said Robert Doll, chief equity strategist at Nuveen Asset Management, in a commentary Monday.

The big gains mark a rebound from a dramatic wave of selling that has slammed stocks in recent days. The yield of the 10-year U.S. Treasury note fell to 2.05 percent Friday from 2.07 percent Thursday.

Last week the Dow Jones Industrial Average, broad-based S&P 500, and technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite suffered through their worst week in years. This comes after consecutive trading days where the index lost over 500 points. Stocks in Japan lost 4 percent.

The U.S. market slide was broad. The company provides transportation and related services to the oil and natural gas industry in Western Canada.

Apple shares, among the most widely held on Wall Street, slumped nearly 13 percent at the open but in afternoon trading were vacillating either side of flat on the day.

Stress-filled minutes ticked down until 4 p.m.: CLANG, CLANG, CLANG. It was up as much as 430 points earlier in the day. He has had a 401k for 2 decades and wonders what this sudden drop means. Fears of global economic slowdown, precipitated by China’s weakness 2. Instead, he said, people say: “Wow, my account’s down 10 percent over the last 12 weeks”.

“I try not to think a whole lot about it”, says Miller. The Nasdaq composite gained 141, or 3.1 percent, to 4,668. The stock of MTY Food Group (also a Montreal-based company) is down from $37 to $31, or the equivalent of 16 per cent. It now trades at only 14 times next year’s earnings.

The next report card on earnings doesn’t arrive until October.

A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange August 24, 2015. “Rule 48” allows designated market-makers to forgo their obligation to circulate price indications before the opening bell.

A correction, Mueller said, occurs when an index such as the Dow Jones goes down 10 percent from its previous high.

Oil majors Exxon and Chevron fell about 4 percent in premarket trading.

“The fundamental reasons why one owns stocks are unbroken”.

The Federal Reserve had been expected to tighten interest rates in mid-September in response to a strengthening U.S. economy.

The dollar index was down 1.48 percent.

Crude oil plunged below $39 a barrel on Monday for the first time since 2009.

“When the stock market starts going into a tizzy, the first thing it does is hit business and consumer confidence”, Chris Christopher, director of consumer markets for IHS Global Insight, told the Herald this morning. The move boosted markets around the world.

The index was down 7.8 percent at one point, its worst intraday loss since October 2008, just after the demise of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers. By midday, however, the Dow was off just 112 points, before sliding in the final hour to close down 588.47 points to 15,871.28. A bear market is what happens when stocks are at least 20 percent below that peak.

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That would mean the bull market that began more than six years ago will survive.

Global Markets Continue Last Week's Steep Decline