Snowballing sell-off drives Dow down 679 points

By TIM PARADIS and MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP NEW YORK - A runaway train of a sell-off turned the anniversary of the stock market peak into one of the worst days in Wall Street history Thursday, driving the Dow Jones industrials down a breathtaking 679 points and deepening a financial crisis that has defied all efforts to stop it. President Bush with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson addresses the media in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2008. (AP photo/ Lawrence Jackson) Stocks lost more than 7 percent, $872 billion of investments evaporated, and the Dow fell to 8,579. When the average crashed through the 9,000 level for the first time in five years in the final hour of trading, sellers had only begun to hit the gas pedal. As bad as the day was, even worse was the cumulative effect of a... [read full story]