Blue chips fall about 5 percent at Wall Street close

NEW YORK - Wall Street sent stocks down sharply for a second straight day.

The weakness comes ahead of tomorrow's October jobs report, expected to reflect damage from the economic downturn. Today, retailers told of declining sales last month, as consumers avoided many non-essential purchases.

The Dow fell 443 points to 8,695.

The S&P declined about 48 points to 904.

And the Nasdaq composite was down nearly 73 points to 1,608.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing stocks by a 5 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Volume on the NYSE came to 5.9 billion shares. Nasdaq stock market volume was 2.4 billion shares.