Unfortunately, our system is not really designed to handle this sort of carnage.  So many in the financial world live right on the edge, and when things go really, really bad the dominoes can start falling at a pace that is absolutely breathtaking.  We witnessed this back in 2008, and it could soon happen again.

On Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 880 points, and many were deeply concerned about what Monday would bring.

Well, the pessimists turned out to be correct, because the Dow plunged another 876 points on Monday.

Overall, the Dow is now down approximately 17 percent from its record high, and so it has almost reached bear market territory.

Of course the S&P 500 is already there…

The S&P 500 fell 3.88% to 3,749.63, marking its lowest level since March 2021 and bringing its losses from its January record to more than 21%. The benchmark closed in bear market territory (down more than 20% from its high) after trading there briefly on an intraday basis about three weeks ago. Some on Wall Street say it's not an official bear market until the index closes there and that's what happened on Monday. The last time stocks were in a bear market was in March 2020 at the onset of the pandemic.

Needless to say, the Nasdaq has them both beat.  Tech stocks were on the cutting edge on the way up, and now they are on the bleeding edge on the way down.  The Nasdaq dropped another 4.68% on Monday, and at this point it has already dropped over 33 percent from the all-time high.

Just think about that.  A third of the value of the Nasdaq has already been obliterated.