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U.S. Stock Markets Take Another Steep Dive

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

LOU WATERS, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Lou Waters.

In the news, U.S. stock markets take another steep dive and we do mean steep. Investor jitters over less than glowing inflation news fueled today's plunge.

With less than an hour to go in regular trading, let's check in with CNNfn's Myron Kandel, who joins us from New York -- Mike.

MYRON KANDEL, CNN FINANCIAL EDITOR: Well, Lou, some people were hoping on Wall Street that we would see a rally in the final hour of trading, and instead both the major markets, the Dow and the Nasdaq, seem to be going down even more. Right now, the Dow is down nearly 600 points, 592 to be exact. The Nasdaq is down 337 points. This is the worst week in the history of the Nasdaq. It is down more than 25 percent in just five days, and it's the worst loss both in terms of points, more than a thousand points, and in terms of percentages.

Now the Dow isn't down as much, but it's still down 6 1/2 percent for the week.

And of course, what happened today is we got some bad news on inflation, inflation ticked up in March and that added to fears that the Federal Reserve would continue to raise interest rates, and that accelerated the drop in the market that had been going on all week -- Lou.

WATERS: All right, Myron Kandel in New York, we will keep a close watch on this. CNN will bring you a full recap of this volatile trading day when the markets close in just a matter of minutes. CNN's "STREET SWEEP" will be here with a wrap up, and that can seen at 3:59, a minute before the closing bell, that is Eastern time.

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