Stocks plunge on recession fears

The Dow had been down 450 points in the early going. About an hour into the trading day, the Dow was down 200 points, the Nasdaq was down more than 50 and the S&P 500 was down 24 points.

Earlier today, the Federal Reserve put an emergency rate cut of three-quarters of one percent in place, after dramatic declines on global stock markets.

In Asia, Japan's Nikkei average lost 5.7 percent, its biggest percentage decline in nearly 10 years. Australia's benchmark index sank more than 7 percent and Hong Kong's key average finished down 8.7 percent after a more than 5 percent drop on Monday.