Wall Street, Nasdaq | featured news

UBS decried a proposal from Nasdaq to make up losses for firms damaged in the Facebook stock-market debut, joining a growing chorus of Wall Street players that are calling on regulators to reject the exchange operator's plan.

Stocks are pulling back sharply on Wall Street as investors get their first chance to react to a slowdown in hiring in the United States in March. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 152 points to 12,908 shortly before noon Monday. The Standard & Poor's 500 index was off 18 at 1,380, and the Nasdaq composite lost 36 points to 3,044.

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.

After one of the most wild days on Wall Street, Nasdaq canceled trades of 296 stocks whose prices fluctuated the most.