Market Decline Biggest Since 2008 Crisis

As the closing bell rang Friday afternoon on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, it marked the end of the worst three-month cycle since the beginning of the financial crisis in 2008.
Traders who are often trading to make their bucks quickly were selling today on fears that Europe's debt crisis won't go away quickly and the U-S economy won't rebuild quickly.
Today's drops for the main indices were 2 percent plus. That leads to taking a closer look at how the market has been doing -- short-term and long term.
Short-term, this year the Dow Jones Industrials Average of 30 of the biggest U-S companies had been up, but now it's down. A loss of 12 percent in the last three month has turned the year from what had been a seven percent gain into a six percent loss.
And for some historical perspective, if you feel the market overall hasn't done much for a while, consider that Friday's Dow close of 10,913 was first reached on May 3, 1999 creating a flat 12 and a half years for the best known U.S. stock index.