In a wild session the Dow Jones fell as low as 7,900 and climbed as high as 8,800 before ending down about 1.5%

On the plus side, the NASDAQ was actually up 4 points. Techs Amazon, eBay, and Google all ended up, but Yahoo and Microsoft were down.

The worst news came out of the AMEX, which continued to be pounded, down almost 6%.

Overnight, markets in Asia and Europe matched or exceeded the fall in stock prices that had taken place on Wall Street Thursday.

The Japanese stock market fell a little less than 10%. That loss was its biggest one-day drop in twenty years. The market is down about 25% this week. The major Europen markets didn`t fall that far, but the markets in Iceland, Russia, Austria, Indonesia, Romania and Ukraine all were closed due to the falling stock prices.

All through the spring, investors turned even in bad news into stock market gains. Now, that attitude has changed 180 degrees as the markets continue to fall in spite of, or maybe because of, continuing government action to reassure them.

In the month since Treasury Secretary Henry Paulsen and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke began pushing their bailout plan, the stock market has fallen approximately 3,400 points, potentially erasing around $6 trillion in value.

The Dow Jones has now fallen more than 40% from its peak this time last year. That fall has dropped the dollar value of the market about $10 trillion, returning it to about 2003 levels.

Most of the fall has taken place since the passage of the Paulsen/Bernanke bailout package. The market has headed straight south since closing at over 10,800 on October 1st.

Institutional investors, which include pension funds, investment companies, insurance companies, banks, college endowments and foundations, hold as much as 75% of the stock of the 1,000 largest U.S. corporations. So they have born much of the pain of the fall in stock prices.

The impact on consumers had begun early this year as gasoline, energy and food prices rose dramatically cutting into most household budgets. As a result, sales of big ticket items, like cars, have fallen dramatically.

Most retailers reported falling sales in September, leading forecasters to predict a tough holiday sales season. For many retailers, the holiday season normally contributes a substantial percentage of their annual profit.

Some analysts believe that the market is looking at the meeting of finance ministers from the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Italy, Germany and Japan. Those analysts believe that if that meeting produces positive results, the stock markets around the world may stabilize.

Finance Ministers Meet