Stocks Plunge on Weak Retail, Oil

The biggest drop in retail sales in three years and continuing doubts about the bank bailout resulted in a drubbing on Wall Street, with the Dow plunging 733.08 to 8,577.91, and the S&P dropping nine percent. Exxon Mobil and Chevron were big losers with eight percent drops as crude fell below $75 a barrel for the first time in a year; Morgan Stanley shed 15 percent; and Wal-Mart sagged six percent on news that chain store purchases declined 1.2 percent in September. "A big chunk of our economy is in recession right now," Tom Werth, senior investment officer at Chemung Canal Trust Co., told Bloomberg. "There's fear the Christmas season is going to be miserable."