World markets mostly slumped Monday after a raft of weak economic data renewed fears that the global economy is slowing sharply. A litany of bad economic news has snuffed out Wall Street's five-day rally, sending stocks falling sharply as investors realized anew how troubled the US economy really is. The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 679.95 points (7.70 percent) to 8,149.09 just after the closing bell, which would represent the fourth-steepest point loss in history for blue chips. The Nasdaq composite plummeted 137.50 points (8.95 percent) to 1,398.07 and the broad-market Standard & Poor's 500 index sank 80.05 points (8.93 percent) to a preliminary close of 816.19. The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was down 153.92 points, or 3.6 percent, at 4,134.09, while Germany's DAX was 217.85, or 4.7 percent, lower at 4,451.59. The CAC-40 in France was 131.10, or 4.0 percent, lower at 3,131.58. Earlier, most Asian markets had closed lower with the benchmark Nikkei 225 stock average in Tokyo down 115.05 points, or 1.4 percent, at 8,397.22.
