Fear and worry of an uncertain economy dug the trench into which the stock market plunged Monday, local economic experts said.

The Dow Jones Industrial average dropped almost 800 points Monday before rallying to close at 9,955.50. The 369.88-point fall took the Dow under 10,000 for the first time in four years.

Donald Coffin, associate professor of economics at Gary's Indiana University Northwest, said people's fears about the economy caused the global market sell-off.

"What's really happening is people are continuing to be really, really scared," Coffin said. "They're taking money out of the (stock) market and going for whatever they can find that is not risky."

As a consequence, people are putting money in safe harbors, such as government-backed 30-day Treasury bills, even though the T-bills pay virtually no interest, he said.

"People are buying them like there's no tomorrow because they are as safe as it gets" Coffin said. "People are running away from risk as fast as they can and running to a really safe place to put their money right now."

As the markets continue to fall, a snowball effect is created.

The $700 billion Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, which was signed into law by President Bush on Friday, will help curb the current turmoil in the markets, but it hasn't infused money into the financial system yet, Coffin said. When it does, the money will allow the government to buy the assets of banks and investment firms, he said.

"It will be soon, I hope," he said. "They need to do something quickly, but there is a lot of stuff in there that is not spelled out. So it takes time."

Bob Sweet, managing editor of Hammond-published Dow Theory Forecast, agrees Monday's market free fall is the result of investors' worries about the soundness of the market and their portfolios.

"People are worried about the credit markets, debt securities and investments like bonds that were backed by assets that aren't as valuable as originally thought," Sweet said. "They aren't confident that companies will be able to pay their debts."

A lot of people owned stakes in recently failed companies, leading to widespread fear, Sweet said.

If investors hold quality stocks, they should ride it out, he said.