Dow ended a miserable session with a loss of 172.16 points or 1.76% to close at 9624.64 while Nasdaq tumbled by 40.38 points or 2.53% to 1554.88. Today's gloom was precipitated by a Merrill downgrade of tech bellwether Intel which depressed the tech sector. Other sectors were depressed as a result with some notable names hit one year and multi-year lows. Within the Dow, only McDonalds and Microsoft were able to post gains, the rest all lost ground with most issues off better than 2%. The S&P 500 ended the day down 20.76 points or 1.98% at 1029.15.