Dow loses 519 points

Interrupted briefly on Tuesday, the market bloodbath resumes. Ugh. Stocks opened sharply lower and never came close to recovering. The last 20 minutes were especially brutal (lots of frantic computer trading). To say there's an overreaction is almost besides the point at this stage - the prevailing narrative simply isn't allowing for positive news and that tends to feed on itself. Now there's talk of a kind of reverse wealth effect - that is, higher-end investors who tend to buy more luxury items when they feel richer will pull back when they feel poorer. Which is a big deal because luxury spending has played a disproportionately greater role in the recovery. The reality is that the current economy, while weak, is not nearly as bad as the screamers on cable news would have you believe. But emotion is getting in the way of reason, at least for the moment. At the close the Dow stood at 10,719, down 4.6 percent for the day. (Bloomberg, AP)