Stocks Plunge as Fears About Economy Grow
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Top of the hour. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. Let's get you up to speed. Stocks plunge as fears about the economy grow. A weak report on jobs is adding to those concerns. The number of Americans filing for first-time unemployment claims barely budged last week. Stocks are down more than two percent across the board right now. The number, down 319 points, at 11,576. We'll check in with our Alison Kosik, who is at the New York Stock Exchange, Poppy Harlow in New York as well. Let's begin with you, Alison. Tell us more about this plunge.</s>ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we are seeing the pace of selling for the Dow pick up steam. The Dow down, as you saw, 326 points. You know, we're getting really, really close to seeing a market correction where that would be a 10 percent drop in the Dow. If you look at the level -- we can put that on the screen -- right now we're at 11,571. When we get to 11,529, that is considered the level of an actual 10 percent market correction. If you want to look at it in point terms, in the past two weeks the Dow has lost more than 1,000 points. Poof, gone. And the reason is because we've got just a combination of factors at work here, including the concerns about the possibility that the European debt crisis could be getting worse, could spread here to banks and businesses here at home. And then, of course, a litany of economic reports that are downbeat, that are really weighing on the markets here and weighing on investors. And that's why you see all the selling today. Just an indication of the market fear, we look at this thing called the VIX Index. It's spiking 21 percent. That shows there's a lot of fear in the marketplace -- Fredricka.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. Let's check with Poppy Harlow. Also, that fear, I guess, is kind of cascading as it pertains to jobs, the loss of jobs, and this jobs report coming out tomorrow, which is not expected to be very uplifting.</s>POPPY HARLOW, CNNMONEY.COM: That's such a good point, Fredricka. Let's take a look at the timing of this sell-off. We were down 369 points, rebounding a little bit right now. This comes just ahead of that all-important jobs report tomorrow morning before the market opens. This is not a good sign that investors don't feel confident going into that. Remember how much worse the jobs report was last month when we went through that. I want to tell you why this is happening. I just got done talking with Bob Dole (ph), who is an inequity analyst, who does this day in and day out. And he said this comes down to one thing and one thing alone, that is uncertainty. Markets hate uncertainty. The debt deal may be done for the debt ceiling; however, we don't know where more than a trillion dollars is going to be cut. And I'm looking at stocks trading right now. From big banks to Apple to Google, every single one is lower. There's not confidence in any sector. Also, we have this interesting mix. We have corporate earnings doing very well, yet we have this jobs crisis. There's only so long, Fredricka, that companies can make money by selling their good overseas. That is waning, that is coming more to an end. You have to have confidence in jobs in this country for people to spend money and for them to prop up these companies, and that's not happening right now. So this is exactly what Alison said, this is fear and this timing is very, very bad coming ahead of the jobs report tomorrow morning. I want to push you to CNNMoney.com. We've got full coverage. The headline, as you can see, "The Gloom is Back on Wall Street." We're tracking it minute by minute. But this is a market that you need to pay attention to when you have a steep decline like we are seeing right now.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. Poppy, thanks so much. And Alison, as well. We'll check back with you. Appreciate that. Meantime, also, all eyes are on Virginia Tech right now, where three kids at a summer camp there tell authorities they saw a man possibly carrying a gun on campus. So police are taking the report very seriously. No one yet matches the description that the campers gave. Instead, the university is asking everyone to stay put.</s>CHIEF WENDELL FLINCHUM, VIRGINIA TECH CAMPUS POLICE: It was a white male that was wearing a blue and white striped shirt -- the stripes were vertical -- gray shorts, brown sandals, and the subject was described as not having facial hair or glasses.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. The instructions there, also lock the doors and call 911 if anyone on campus sees anything or hears anything. Virginia Tech was the site of a shooting massacre back in 2007, you'll recall. That left 33 people dead. A message to U.S. Congress: come back and fix the FAA funding dispute putting thousands of people out of work. Lawmakers left on summer vacation without resolving the stalemate over small airport subsidies and labor union rules. FAA workers going without their paychecks are frustrated.</s>MICHAEL WEATHERBY, FURLOUGHED FAA WORKER: It's hard for my family. I'm going through my savings rather quickly. We've been told to go on unemployment. That takes weeks to actually get going. It's tough.</s>WHITFIELD: Now check your freezers. Check the packages of ground turkey, in particular. Meat processor Cargill is recalling 36 million pounds of that ground turkey. The products have been linked to salmonella food poisoning illnesses in 26 states and may be related to one death in California. The leader of a polygamist sect on trial for sexual assault rested his case just a short time ago. Warren Jeffs is representing himself in court. The prosecution wrapped up its case yesterday after presenting a key piece of evidence, a tape of Jeffs allegedly assaulting a then 12-year-old girl.</s>GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: What happened in this audiotape, we heard Warren Jeffs say, "That feels good. How do you feel?" And this little girl voice said, "Very good." It's so sad, because we've seen pictures of her in court. She's small for her age. She has red hair. She was described by a witness as having red hair and freckles, and she looks like Pippi Longstocking.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. This week's beautiful heat already has killed two high school football players and the coach. At the half hour, we will hear from a high school coach who is keeping a close watch on his team as they practice. And here is a look ahead at the rundown. First, '70s pop icon David Cassidy was all over "Partridge Family" lunch boxes and a mountain of merchandise from the show. Well, now, decades later, he claims he was cheated out of merchandising profits, and he wants to get paid. It's a CNN exclusive. And in California, a day at the beach almost turned deadly for a teen building a tunnel in the sand. See right there, they got him out. Also, famine spreads in Somalia. The fight to keep tens of thousands of people from starving.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Those people that you see queuing here, this is the only guaranteed meal that they have.</s>WHITFIELD: And with 15 states under heat advisories in this country, warnings. We'll take a look at how heat affects the body. And finally, the return of Tiger Woods. He is set to tee off next hour in Akron, Ohio.