Rising Unemployment Stokes Fears Of Protracted Recession

Despite a strong increase in factory orders, the markets plunged to close sharply lower with the Dow skidding 223 points to 8280 as soaring unemployment stocked fears of a protracted recession. Nasdaq collapsed 49 points to 1796.

On the upside

Navisite (Nasdaq: NAVI) settled an arbitration dispute with La Touraine.

JMP Securities initiated coverage of Symantec (Nasdaq: SYMC) with a Market Outperform rating.

On the downside

Fifth Third Bancorp (Nasdaq: FITB) completed the sale of its 51 percent ownership in Fifth Third Processing Solutions to Advent International.

Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) will pay $713 million in dividends to the government under the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) said that it will accept IOUs issued by the state of California while the state legislature continues negotiations to resolve the budget deficit.

Retreating oil prices weighed down shares of Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM).

In the broad market, declining issues outpaced advancers by a margin of more than 7 to 2 on the NYSE and by 5 to 1 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks sank 20 points to 497.