U.S. stocks plummeted, driving the Dow Jones Industrial Average below 10,000 for the first time in four years, after bank bailouts in Europe spread and commodities companies stumbled on concern global growth is slowing.

According to Bloomberg, a business news-wire service, “equities fell worldwide, with trading in Russia and Brazil halted. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Corp. lost more than 6.3 percent after the German government led a bailout of Hypo Real Estate Holding AG and BNP Paribas SA bought Fortis’s Belgium bank. ConocoPhillips slid 7.3 percent as oil traded below $90 a barrel, sending the Standard & Poor’s 500 Energy Index to a 21-month low.”

The S&P 500 dropped 63.37 points, or 5.8 percent, to 1,035.86 at 10:48 E.T., the lowest since December 2003. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 510.7, or 5 percent, to 9,814.68. The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index soared as much as 25 percent to 55.86, the highest in its 18-year history.

Ralph Shive, chief investment officer at 1^st Source Corp Investment advisers in South Bend, Indiana, which manages $3 billion, described current market conditions as a “financial panic.”

Last week, the S&P 500 tumbled 9.4 percent, the steepest slump since the terrorist attacks of September 2001, as fears the U.S. is headed for a recession overshadowed passage of a $700 billion bank bailout.

As reported by Bloomberg, “stocks briefly pared their decline after the Federal Reserve doubled its emergency auctions of loans to commercial banks to as much as $900 billion. The central bank also will begin paying interest on bank deposits under authority it gained from financial-rescue legislation enacted last week.”

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