Worries about the deteriorating financial situation in countries like Romania and Hungary led to a huge sell-off on Tuesday that began overseas and crashed ashore on Wall Street.
Every sector sank, with financial stocks leading the way and energy companies falling on tumbling oil prices. Rattled investors rushed to buy safer investments like gold and Treasury debt.
The losses on Wall Street were part of a global wave of selling that dragged down stock markets from Tokyo to London and Frankfurt to Brazil, highlighting fears about how banks, automakers — entire countries — will fare in a deepening global downturn.
The news helped send the Dow Jones industrial average to nearly the same low that it hit amid the credit crisis last fall. The Dow fell 297.81 points, or 3.8 percent, to 7,552.60, which was almost the same as the 7,552.29 close for the Dow on Nov. 20.
I will post more after I read through the stories that are swirling around today. Sufficient to note that what I said a while ago is coming true. We are done with major private failures and we are now entering into the era of sovereign failures.