Dow under 10 000 again

Washington Post just published their version for the reason behind the plummet of the stock market. Good dissection but somehow not really news to anybody:

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Stocks plummet on economic worries
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NEW YORK -- The Dow Jones industrials plunged below 10,000 Tuesday as investors worried about a global economic slowdown and tensions between North and South Korea turned away from stocks.

The Dow fell 248.79, or 2.5 percent, to 9,817.78. It closed at 10,066 on Monday and has fallen 1,388 points, or more than 12 percent, from its recent high of 11,205, reached April 26.

With investors exiting stocks, oil and the euro, U.S. Treasury prices again surged. The perceived safety of U.S. government bonds pushed yields and interest rates lower. The benchmark 10-year note's yield fell to its lowest level since April 2009.

World stock markets were also sharply lower.

A disappointing report on U.S. home prices added to the market's dark mood. The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index fell 0.5 percent in March from February, a sign that the housing market remains weak even as mortgage rates are near historic lows. There are concerns that last month's expiration of the government's home buyer tax credit will hurt sales in the coming months.

"Market participants feel like they're walking on eggshells," said Oliver Pursche, executive vice president at Gary Goldberg Financial Services in Suffern, N.Y. "Every small piece of potentially bad news is being exaggerated and mentally being fast-forwarded to the worst-case scenario."

European Union leaders warned Tuesday that the continent's economy would stagnate unless governments make major reforms to promote growth. The problem is, though, that large debts in some countries make it difficult to implement stimulus measures to rally economies.

The euro approached a four-year low, which it set last week. The euro dropped to $1.2218, bringing it within a penny of the low of $1.2146 it touched last week.

Traders have been rapidly selling the euro in recent weeks because of uneasiness over whether steep budget cuts in countries like Greece, Spain and Portugal will drag down an economic recovery on the continent. Italy was set to become the latest European nation to announce spending cuts to reduce its deficit.

Markets were also hurt by reports that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il ordered his military to combat alert because of rising tensions on the Korean peninsula. Major indexes in Japan and Hong Kong fell more than 3 percent."