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All Eyes on Wall Street a Day After Dow Jones Plummets 500 Points

By DNAinfo Staff on August 5, 2011 12:26pm

Fears of a weak economy at home and debt concerns in Europe precipitated a massive sell-off of stocks on Wall Street on Thursday.
Fears of a weak economy at home and debt concerns in Europe precipitated a massive sell-off of stocks on Wall Street on Thursday.
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AP Photo/Richard Drew, file

MANHATTAN — Wall Street rallied early Friday morning before plunging almost 100 points a day after global financial fears sent the Dow Jones plummeting to its biggest one-day loss in almost three years.

The Dow Jones opened with a 100-point rally Friday morning on news from the Department of Labor that the economy had added 117,000 jobs and the unemployment rate dropped from 9.2 to 9.1 in June, the New York Times reported.

However, the rally was short lived as the stock market dropped back down 96 points by midday.

“There’s still a recovery but it’s teetering on the edge,” Robin Marshall, director of investment management at Smith & Williamson in London, told the Times.

Friday's roller coaster ride comes 24 hours after the Dow Jones fell 513 points, the biggest one-day drop since the financial crisis in October 2008.

Investors concerned about European debt, the weak U.S. economy and the tense debt ceiling negotiations brought the bear to Wall Street, precipitating a eye-popping sell off on Thursday.

"A lot of panic selling, a lot of selling because of what’s happening with the economy, what happened with the debt ceiling last week," Alan Gordon, of Fordham Financial, told NY1 Thursday.

However, some analysts are calling it a simple market correction. 

"You've got to realize this market's coming off a big low from two years ago, and it's almost up like 70 percent from that low, so is this like a normal correction or a total correction? I would have to say it's basically a normal correction," market analyst Louis Fulfenti told NY1.