BBC: The Dow Jones plunged almost 370 points in a perfect storm of surging oil costs, a sliding dollar, and fresh fears of paralysis in the credit markets.
Twenty years to the day since Black Monday, when the Dow slumped 508 points in a day, Wall Street was rocked by rumours of defaults and heightened fears that the US economy may be heading for a recession.
There were frantic scenes in the last hour of trading on Wall Street yesterday, as traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange fell over one another to place sell orders in all of America's biggest companies.
The Dow finally closed down 366.94 points at 13522.02 recording its biggest one-day loss since August 9, the start of this summer's credit crisis.
In total, 1.75bn shares changed hands on the NYSE, 1.65bn were sell orders. The panic selling was compounded by the unwinding of options. Wall St caught in a perfect storm (more) By James Quinn in New York and Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in London
Mark Alexander
