From NY Times:
Investors’ despair about financial companies pushed Wall Street exchanges down sharply on Monday, the first day of a week that culminates with the unemployment report on Friday.
Monday’s decline brought the Dow Jones industrial average to another unwanted milestone: its first drop below 7,000 since 1997. At the close, the Dow Jones industrial average declined about 300 points, or 4.24 percent, while the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index declined about 34 points or 4.7 percent. The Nasdaq composite fell nearly 4 percent.