Wall Street just had its worst-ever Christmas Eve

Stocks sold off again on Monday with the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing down 653 points and the S&P 500 entering into a bear market with its 2.6% percent drop — the worst Christmas Eve for those indices ever.

Driving the declines: Steven Mnuchin’s call with the big bank CEOs didn’t inspire confidence. The market also didn’t buy assurances from a senior Treasury official to CNBC that the call was just a check-in and that the Treasury had no concerns about liquidity. Adding to concerns was a tweet from President Trump that said the economy’s “only problem” was the Fed.

• As typical, trading volume was light in the shortened session ahead of Christmas, though, which can exaggerate stock moves.

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