U.S. stock markets continued their sell-off Monday, with the Dow Jones down more than 650 points, despite Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin calling the heads of the country’s six major banks on Sunday in an attempt to calm investors’ fears. The S&P 500 slid into a bear market and The Financial Times called it “the worst Christmas Eve trading day on record.” (Wall Street Journal, Financial Times)

Talking point: Mnuchin’s move—which comes after the stock market’s worst week since the 2008 financial crisis—seems to have had the opposite effect: the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite have all declined further on Monday as investors remain jittery over rising interest rates, slowing U.S. growth and, now, a government shutdown. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump said the U.S. Federal Reserve is “the only problem our economy has,” and that it doesn’t “have a feel for the market,” in response to its decision last week to raise short-term interest rates for a fourth time this year, and signals that more are likely in the year ahead.