Dow finishes below 10,000 for first time since 2004

Wall Street has joined in a worldwide cascade of despair over the financial crisis, driving the Dow Jones industrials to their biggest loss ever during a trading day. Even a big afternoon rally failed to keep the Dow from its first close below 10,000 since 2004.

The sell-off came despite the $700 billion US government bailout package, which was signed into law Friday after two weeks in which traders had appeared to count on the rescue as their only hope to avoid a market meltdown.

At its worst point, the Dow was down more than 800 points, an intraday record. The stock market rallied during the final 90 minutes of the trading day, and the Dow finished down about 370 points at 9,955.50.

Speculation among traders late in the session that the market's pullback had been severe enough to force the Federal Reserve into taking other steps to soothe the markets helped stocks rebound from their lows.

"If you can't say that we're oversold now I don't know what you say. You're at least due for a bounce if nothing else," said Bill Stone, chief investment strategist for PNC Wealth Management.

The global plunge in stocks was under way well before Wall Street ever woke up. In Japan, the Nikkei average lost more than 4 per cent. And then the losses spread across Europe -- nearly 6 per cent for the FTSE-100 in Britain, 7 per cent for the German DAX and more than 9 per cent for France's CAC-40.

In the United States, President George W Bush twice made unscheduled remarks on the economy, saying in Cincinnati that the economy would be "just fine" but that the bailout package needed time to work.

The troubles that started with an overheated housing market in the US have infected financial markets around the world, making banks fearful of lending to other banks, let alone to businesses and consumers.