MARKET SNAPSHOT: U.S. Stocks Close Sharply Lower To End With Monthly Declines

MARKET SNAPSHOT: U.S. Stocks Close Sharply Lower To End With Monthly Declines

money.cnn.com

U.S. stocks plunged on Friday, ending the week and the month on a losing note after losses by American International Group Inc. shook up Wall Street and poor results from Dell Inc. rocked the tech sector.

"We had a trainload of bad news; they couldn't keep the bad news coming fast enough," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Jefferies & Co.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) fell 315.79 points to 12,266.39, giving the blue-chip gauge a weekly loss of 0.9%. The Dow fell 3% in February, and is down 7.5% for the year to date.

All of the Dow's 30 components spent the final day of February in the red. Pacing the action was AIG (AIG), off more than 7% after the insurance giant reported the largest loss in its almost 90 years in business. .

"It will be interesting to see what happens next week, since we're in for the same combination of bad economic data and bad corporate news -- that's what happens when you have an economic slowdown," Hogan said.

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Wow! What does this mean?
I'm very concerned about this but would be appreciative if someone could put all of this into some kind of perspective that's less alarming than this article. thanks.

money.cnn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)