Market Watch 10/01/2009

Today is Thursday. It is sunny in here.

Stocks began the fourth quarter with their worst drop in three months after reports on the job market and manufacturing reawakened investors' pessimism about the economy.

It was the sixth drop in seven days for stocks.

The latest worries erupted when the Labor Department said new claims for jobless benefits rose last week to 551,000. Economists had expecting claims would be essentially unchanged at 535,000, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.

The mood on Wall Street darkened when the Institute for Supply Management said its index of manufacturing activity in September fell rather than rose as analysts had expected.

The Dow fell 203.00, or 2.1 percent, to 9,509.28. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 27.23, or 2.6 percent, to 1,029.85, and the Nasdaq composite index dropped 64.94, or 3.1 percent, to 2,057.48.

Bond prices jumped as investors sought safety, sending the yield on the 10-year Treasury note down to 3.18 percent -- its lowest since May -- from 3.31 percent late Wednesday.

The dollar mostly rose against other major currencies, while gold slid.

Light, sweet crude rose 21 cents to settle at $70.82 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.