That whole crisis in the housing and credit markets -- it isn't over yet:
Stocks fell sharply and money gushed into safe investments today, as Wall Street experienced a bout of deja vu from the turmoil of August.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 367 points, or 2.6 percent, in its sixth decline in the past eight trading days, and other indexes notched similar declines. Ultra-safe government bonds soared, with two-year Treasury notes recording their best weekly gain since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to calculations by Bloomberg News.
Investors, who in early October started to shrug off worries about a downturn in the housing and credit markets, have developed renewed fears that those problems will be a drag on corporate earnings in the coming year. Since hitting an all-time high on Oct. 9, the Standard & Poor's 500, a broad measure of U.S. stocks, has fallen more than 4 percent. It remains above the lows it hit in mid-August, however, in the middle of the credit crisis.
