U.S. Stocks Plunge on Dashed EU Bailout Hopes

U.S. stocks and global risk assets plunged on Monday as German officials dashed the heightened expectations of investors.

The S&P 500 Index closed down 23.72 points, or 1.94 percent, to end at 1,200.86. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 247.49 points, or 2.13 percent, to close at 11,397.00. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.98 percent.

The German stock market closed down 1.81 percent and the French stock market fell 1.61 percent.

In the past week, investor hopes were high that Eurozone and global leaders meeting at the weekend G20 event would advance the conversation on bailing out Europe and soon announce concrete details.

This optimism helped spark the S&P 500 to its biggest weekly gain since mid-2009.

However, German officials dampened such hopes.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said the weekend meeting did not produce any definitive solution.

The German Chancellor’s spokesperson Steffen Seibert added that “dreams” of officials solving this problem by next Monday “cannot be fulfilled.”