Worst joblessness statistics for nine months, coupled with gloomy manufacturing survey data, send dollar and Wall Street tumbling Shares plunged on Wall Street and the dollar fell sharply tonight after an increase in jobless claims and weak signals from industry prompted fears that the US is heading for a double-dip recession. The Dow Jones index fell 200 points at one stage in morning trading in New York after the US labour department reported that 500,000 new claims for unemployment benefit were filed in the week ending 14 August – an increase of 12,000 on the previous week and the highest figure for nine months. The already gloomy mood was compounded when the Philadelphia Fed, one of the Federal Reserve’s 12 regional reserve banks, published its monthly health check on manufacturing in America’s mid-Atlantic region.