For Stocks, Worst Single-Day Drop in Two Decades

But by the time that bell sounded again on the New York Stock Exchange, seven and a half frantic hours later, $1.2 trillion had vanished from the United States stock market. What had started 24 hours earlier, with a modest sell-off in stock markets in Asia, had turned into Wall Street?s blackest day since the 1987 crash. The broad market, as measured by the Standard & Poor?s 500-stock index, plunged almost 9 percent, its third-biggest decline since World War II. The Dow Jones industrial average fell nearly 778 points, or 6.98 percent, to 10,365.45.