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The Federal Reserve may take steps Tuesday to try to boost investor confidence, Bloomberg News reports.

The price of gold streaked past $1,700 an ounce for the first time Monday. Investors, beset by worries about the U.S. debt downgrade, Europe's financial crisis and slowing global growth, sought safety in the metal as stocks tumbled around the world.

Finance officials from major industrial countries, seeking to calm nervous global markets, pledged Sunday to increase cooperation on attacking economic problems.

More than $2.5 trillion have been wiped off the value of world stocks this week on mounting concerns the global economy is heading toward another recession.

Investors fled Wall Street in the worst stock-market selloff since the middle of the financial crisis in early 2009 in what has turned into a full-fledged correction. The Dow and the S&P tumbled more than 4 percent on Thursday and the Nasdaq lost 5 percent on fear the United States is staring at another recession and that Europe's sovereign debt crisis is swallowing two of its largest economies.

Stocks' downward spiral picked up speed near the end of trading Tuesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost more than 250 points and closed below 12K for the first time since June.

The top executive of NYSE Euronext said a critical European Union review of the company's agreed-upon tie-up with Deutsche Börse will likely result in conditions being placed on the combined company, rather than an outright block of the deal.

MetroPCS reported a sharp slowdown in subscriber growth as the sputtering U.S. economy forced customers to drop their wireless service, a trend the company sees continuing. Shares plunged.

Signs that American consumers were pulling back on their spending added to growing concerns about the direction of the economy.

In its quarterly earning released on Monday, IBM reported revenues of $26.7 billion – up 12% from the same period last year. With IBM reporting its 4th consecutive quarter of double digit revenue growth, its shares have marched higher since its announcement. The stock is up nearly 50% in the last year surpassing Microsoft as the second largest technology company by market cap behind Apple. IBM’s primary competitors include HP, Dell and Oracle.