Updated from 1:10 p.m. EDT

U.S. stocks dropped violently Monday, as it became apparent that the credit crisis had spread beyond America into Europe and Asia.

The

Dow Jones Industrial Average

fell 738 points to 9599, breaking well below 10,000 for the first time since October 2004. The

S&P 500

gave back 85 points to 1015. The

Nasdaq

dropped 155 points to 1793.

In a sign of a

global financial crunch

, leaders from France, Germany, Italy and the U.K. met Saturday and agreed to coordinate efforts to prevent failures by Europe's banking institutions.

A scramble ensued to help troubled institutions. Germany rescued lending company

Hypo Real Estate

, and France's

BNP Paribas

said it would take over Benelux bank

Fortis NV

. Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel, announced that Germany would guarantee all of its private bank deposits. On Monday, Denmark followed suit.

Back in the U.S., the

Federal Reserve

was initiating its own plans Monday to prop up stagnant credit markets. The central bank announced it would pay interest on bank reserves it holds and expand its term auction facilities program.

Meanwhile,

The Wall Street Journal

said that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson would appoint adviser

Neel Kashkari

to supervise the $700 billion bailout program for the financial system. Paulson's proposal passed the House of Representatives and was signed by President Bush on Friday. Stocks sold off sharply shortly after the bill passed.

"What's different today is the bailout package came and went, and it's not going to solve the problem," said Bill Fleckenstein, hedge fund manager at Fleckenstein Capital Management. He said the selloff into the close Friday indicated that stocks are trending lower. "If we wind up having a crash the next couple days I wouldn't be surprised. That's what the tipoff from Friday was," he said.

Ted Weisberg, floor trader with Seaport Securities, was less dire. "Like getting a cold or whatever it happens to be ... sometimes you just have to let things run their course," he said. Fear has gotten a hold of the market and emotion is driving the market, he said.

Stocks eventually will be oversold if they haven't reached that level already, said Weisberg. "Unfortunately, they don't ring a bell and tell us when we're going up," he said. "Market conditions like this create more opportunities than you can shake a stick at. You just have to have a little patience."

"We better bottom today or tomorrow, or we're into a crash," said Jeff Saut, managing director at Raymond James. Saut said the market is facing a crisis of confidence right now, and that passage of the original Paulson plan, without sweeteners, would have instilled optimism into the markets. As it is, he said, the market has lost confidence in financial institutions, the broader economy, and now the government's ability to intervene. "Odds are near 100% we're going into a recession now," he said.

"I'm getting calls from brokers who are getting calls from the public, who's saying sell everything," said Saut. However, when the market experiences the kind of negativity seen today, it's typically near a low, he said.

In the private sector,

Wells Fargo

(WFC) - Get Report

said it intended to go ahead with its purchase of

Wachovia

(WB) - Get Report

. Wells Fargo said an appeals court vacated a ruling that extended an exclusivity agreement between

Citigroup

(C) - Get Report

and Wachovia. Later during the session, Citi announced a $60 billion lawsuit against

Wells Fargo

.

Early Monday, analysts at both Keefe Bruyette and Friedman Billings upgraded Wells Fargo to market perform from underperform.

On the home-loan front,

Bank of America

(BAC) - Get Report

announced it would modify about 400,000 mortgages to help borrowers who had taken out loans from

Countrywide Financial

, which BofA acquired on July 1.

Insurance company

Hartford Financial

(HIG) - Get Report

said it garnered a $2.5 billion investment from

Allianz

( AZ), is reducing its dividend and will register a third-quarter loss.

Money markets were strained.

Bloomberg.com

said three-month Libor, a measure of the cost of borrowing among banks, was at 4.29%, near a high last seen in January. Overnight Libor climbed to 2.37% from 2% Friday.

Outside the financials,

Reuters

reported that

ImClone

(IMCL)

agreed to a merger with

Eli Lilly

(LLY) - Get Report

.

Among technology stocks,

online auctioneer eBay

(EBAY) - Get Report

said it would be cutting its staff by 10% and would buy online payment processor Bill Me Later.

Breadth was frightful. Decliners were trouncing advancers 32-to-1 on the

New York Stock Exchange

. On the Nasdaq, decliners were beating advancers 11-to-1.

In the commodities space, the price of crude oil was down $4.49 to $89.39 a barrel, and gold climbed $33 to settle at $866.20 an ounce.

Longer-term U.S. Treasury securities were climbing in price. The 10-year was up 1-8/32 to yield 3.45%, and the 30-year was climbing 2-18/32, yielding 3.95%.

Overseas markets were broadly falling. The FTSE in London and the Dax in Frankfurt were each down more than 7%.

Asian exchanges

, including Japan's Nikkei and Hong Kong's Hang Seng, closed on the downside.