Wall Street Has Worst Day in Nearly a Year Due to Service Sector News, Global Stimulus Plan Standstill

New York–Stocks saw their worst daily decline in almost a year Tuesday, the Financial Times reports.The S&P 500 fell 3.2 percent on Tuesday–its worst day since February 27. The results brought the S&P’s losses thus far in 2008 to almost 9 percent: Its worst annual start on record. The FTSE 100 index dropped by 2.63 percent Tuesday.Stocks were affected by disappointing service sector news and the failure of several international economies to embrace the United States’ suggestion for a global stimulus package, according to the Times.Data from the Institute for Supply Management that indicated non-manufacturing business activity dropped from a seasonally adjusted level of 54.4 to 41.9 from December to January–the first service sector contraction in almost five years–likely influenced the stock declines. News this week indicating that the Group of Seven leading economies would not agree on a financial stimulus plan to fix the global credit markets also contributed to the drop.U.S. Treasury Undersecretary for International Affairs David McCormick said it was “especially important” for the countries “take prudent steps to strengthen their economies’ demand components”–however, the finance ministries of Japan, Germany and the U.K. haven’t signed on to produce plans similar to the proposed U.S. stimulus package.