The Panic Spreads As The Dow Drops 500 Points

The Dow posted its fourth consecutive day of triple digit losses, ending down 508 points to close at 9,447. The last five trading days have seen the Dow shed over 1,400 points and many believe it will only get worse. The Nasdaq plunged 108 points to 1,755, while the S&P 500 finished below 1,000 after falling 61 points today.

Over the past few turbulent months, the market has had many days of significant triple digit drops. However, it seemed to always be quickly followed up by a strong market recovery. Now there doesn’t seem to be a market rally in sight. The Fed appears to have fired all of its bullets and still have not stopped this runaway train.

Disappointing earnings and even more depressing commentary from Bank of America sent its shares plummeting 26% to finish at $23.77. Dow components Citigroup (C: 34.175 +3.34%), General Electric (GE: 19.24 +0.31%) and JP Morgan (JPM: 38.225 +0.94%) all saw their shares decline by over 10%.

In the Internet sector, 34% of the company’s hit new 52-week lows (16 out of 47 stocks). This included previous high flyers like Google (GOOG: 609.34 +0.42%), Shutterfly (SFLY: 28.08 -0.85%), Amazon (AMZN: 185.84 +0.90%) and eBAY (EBAY: 33.109 +0.73%).

Netflix (NFLX: 123.81 -3.18%) dropped 16% to finish at $22.31. The company announced reduced 4^th quarter guidance on disappointing subscriber growth.

The airline sector saw even greater declines as reduced consumer demand is expected to hit their top and bottom lines. United Airlines (UAUA: 0.00 N/A) fell over 25% today after falling 17% yesterday. Delta (DAL: 10.96 -0.09%) and Northwest also fell over 20%.

Investors continued to buy gold today sending prices up $20.90 to $887.10 an ounce. Silver also posted a nice gain, increasing $.32 to $11.61 an ounce.