Stocks | featured news

The euro began the week by hitting a four-year low against the dollar and Chinese equities joined the decline in global stocks Monday, adding a new element of concern to the recent market turmoil.

Futures trades by Waddell & Reed, a mutual fund based in Kansas, have been linked to the May 6 “flash crash” of the Dow.

Stocks tumbled for a second day Friday after concerns grew that the deep spending cuts under Europe's bailout plan would slow a global recovery.

Stock futures were only slightly higher after weekly jobless claims showed only the slight improvement already expected by economists. Several major Wall Street banks slipped in premarket trading.

Shares rose in Europe and on Wall Street as markets calmed. Gold, however, hit a record amid efforts to defend European countries from sovereign default.

The top securities regulator said no single event had been found to explain Thursday's mysterious market plunge, but the shocking drop was unacceptable and additional safeguards were coming.

The SEC and the major trading exchanges agreed that a market-wide "circuit-breaker" system should be established to handle the type of market volatility demonstrated in Thursday's unsettling market plunge.

European leaders agree to a nearly $1 trillion rescue plan to avoid a major debt crisis; Federal Reserve says it will also provide loans overseas.

U.S. securities regulators are considering new curbs to slow stock trades when markets are plunging following Thursday's dramatic sell-off, a person familiar with the matter said on Saturday.

As regulators sought to make sense of what was behind Thursday's wild gyrations in the stock market, some experts warned that Wall Street's effort to undo tainted trades could encourage the very behavior that led to the market plunge.