Wall Street recap

In turnaround, Dow falls 250 to end month flat

NEW YORK Grim signals about consumer spending ripped through the markets yesterday, sending stocks tumbling as investors raced for safe havens.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index and the Nasdaq composite index ended with losses for October, breaking a streak of seven months of gains. The Dow Jones industrial average tumbled 249.85 points, or 2.5 percent, to 9,712.73, leaving the index with a gain of 0.005 percent for the month. For the week, the Dow fell 2.6 percent.

Drops in key barometers of the health of consumers -- what they're spending, what they're earning and how they're feeling -- fanned worries that an economic recovery celebrated by the market only a day earlier won't last.

The huge reversal in market sentiment reflected how desperate stock investors are to reach conclusions about how the economy is doing, and how quickly they are willing to abandon those convictions.

"I think you have a market that is ultimately looking for its direction," said Bob Froehlich, senior managing director at Hartford Financial Services. "We really are at the inflection point. You tend to have an overreaction to both extremes."

The heaviest selling yesterday came in areas that have been stalwarts of the market's climb since March: financials, technology, energy and industrials. Health care, consumer staples and utilities fared somewhat better.

Investors fled to safer assets like the dollar and Treasurys.