Stock markets are walloped by another sell-off as fears of recession build

By Cezary Pokdul and Peter Whoriskey,
WashPost
Updated: Thursday, August 18, 8:11 PM

Stock prices plunged in a broad sell-off Thursday amid renewed fears about the finances of countries and banks in Europe in a return of the investor skittishness that led to last week’s wild market swings.

While there was no one trigger for the market plunge, a spate of gloomy numbers and the return of panic selling reawakened fears of another recession.

Bleak numbers for U.S. jobs, housing and manufacturing compounded the anxiety over European woes, rattling share prices in every industry, and indicated again that the economic recovery remains fragile.

All three major stock indexes more than wiped out their gains from earlier this week. For the year, the Dow Jones industrial average is down 5 percent, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index is down 9 percent and the Nasdaq composite index is down 10 percent.

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