Business Notes: Stock Market Continues To Fall As Congress Tries To Come Up With Relief Package

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) --The stock market continued to fall as Congress continued its failure to come up with a relief package for the American people and businesses.

One government agency appears to be doing everything it can.

Before the markets opened Monday morning, the Fed reached deep into its bag and pulled out a new method of lending, to keep money flowing and providing credit to businesses.

That includes making loans available to both large and small businesses, helping local governments and purchasing billions of dollars of government debt.

In essence, the Fed opened the checkbook and said it will keep writing checks as long as it is necessary.

And, while investors liked hearing that, the squabbling between Democrats and Republicans to agree on a relief package continued on Capitol Hill.

The Democrats accuse the Republicans of not doing enough, and they are opposed to making money available to corporations without more safeguards.

The Republicans accuse the Democrats of trying to use the relief package to include unrelated items like climate legislation.

And now the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is developing her own legislation.

As this happens in Washington, across the country, more businesses are laying off workers and investors continue to sell.

Here are the closing numbers for the day.

The Dow lost 582 points or 3 percent.

The NASDAQ was down 18 points or a quarter-percent.

The S&P 500 registered a loss of 67 points or 3 percent of its value.

Since the Dow set its all-time high just 40 days ago - it has lost nearly 11,000 points or 37 percent.