Stocks plunge after US hiring dries up in August

Stocks tumbled today on news that the U.S. economy added no new jobs last month.

The jobs report was the weakest in almost a year. It renewed fears that the U.S. might slip back into recession. Treasury yields fell and gold rose as investors piled into investments seen as less risky than stocks.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down 193 points, or 1.7 percent, to 11,299 at 10:30 a.m. EST. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 22, or 1.9 percent, to 1,182. The Nasdaq composite index slipped 41, or 1.6 percent, to 2,505.

The losses wiped out most of this week's gains, leaving the Dow up just 0.1 percent. Stock indexes rose last week for the first time in five weeks.

The VIX, a measure of how volatile investors expect the stock market to be, rose 7 percent to 34. The index had fallen from a recent high of 48 on Aug. 8, when the Dow lost 634 points following a downgrade of the U.S. government's credit rating. It traded below 20 for most of the year.