U.S. Market Growing Fearful of `Black Mondays`

Wall Street has seen severe plunges in the stock market every Monday for four straight weeks in the wake of the U.S. financial upheaval after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy.

This has spread the fear of "black Mondays" throughout the world.

After Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy Sept. 15, Merrill Lynch was bought by Bank of America and AIG announced it had liquidity problems. The Dow Jones Industrial Average that day fell a whopping 504.48 points or 4.42 percent to close at 10,917.51, its biggest single-day drop since September 11, 2001.

A week later, the Dow plunged 372.75 points (3.27 percent) to close at 11,015.69 despite the announcement of the U.S. bailout plan worth 700 billion U.S. dollars. Investors kept selling stocks due to worry that the rescue plan would aggravate the U.S. government’s debt and fail to boost the sluggish economy.

On Sept. 29, the New York Stock Exchange dived a record-high 777.68 points (6.98 percent) to close at 10,365.45 after the House of Representatives rejected the rescue plan.

The U.S. market experienced another "black Monday" two days ago, as the Dow collapsed 369.88 points (3.58 percent) to close at 9,955.50, falling below the 10,000 mark for the first time since October 2004.

The stock index plunged 806 points and fell below 9,600 at one point before recovering in the last 10 minutes, as the expectation spread that the Federal Reserve Board would slash the federal funds rate to ease jitters.

higgledy@donga.com