Pending home sales rose 6.3 pct in December… Merck gains after beating expectations… SanDisk sheds 23 pct, limits Nasdaq gains… Dow up 0.6 pct, S&P up 0.5 pct, Nasdaq 0.2 pct…

Indexes drop 3 percent; All 30 Dow stocks lower… Financials lead slide on outlook concerns… Dec retail sales fall signals spending contraction

Gloomy economic picture fuels risk aversion… Financials, energy, retailers among top drags… Dow off 4.3 pct, S&P 500 off 5 pct, Nasdaq off 5.3 pct

World stocks edge up… Crude oil falls, trades just above $51 a barrel… U.S. dollar firmer, U.S. bonds rise

U.S. equities rallied yesterday (Tuesday) as the U.S. Federal Reserve convened for the first day of a two-day meeting of its monetary policy committee.

Fear of a global recession is quickly becoming reality as world markets have lost $10 trillion in value in the month of October and the U.S. economy almost certainly contracted in the third quarter.

U.S. markets tumbled Friday as a global sell-off spread from Asia and Europe, as fears of a worldwide recession intensified.

The first quarter of 2008 is complete. Boy has it been brutal. As of this writing, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 7.53%, the Nasdaq Composite Index corrected by 14.09% and the S&P 500 retraced 9.88%. While many people lost money on American equities, Death Cross Trader subscribers came out well ahead of the game.

US markets marked the strongest second quarter start since 1938, reports Money Morning.

The rally in financial stocks led the three major indexes to post gains of more than 3%.

At the New York close, the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average Index had posted a gain of 391.96 points (3.20%), to close at 12,654.85.