Dow Jones Industrial Average, Investor | featured news

The "fiscal cliff" sounds like a scary place. Headlines about "taxmaggeddon" are flashing on TV screens, next to clocks ticking down to Jan. 1. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has skidded more than 7 percent over the last month, largely due to concerns about the standoff in Congress over how to stop a barrage of tax hikes and spending cuts. But some major investors say the doomsayers are getting too much attention and cliff watchers should relax a bit.

Investors seem to think you want an iPad more than oil, as Apple Inc. became the most valuable company in the United States, surpassing Exxon Mobil Corp. on Wednesday.

Investors fled Wall Street in the worst stock-market selloff since the middle of the financial crisis in early 2009 in what has turned into a full-fledged correction. The Dow and the S&P tumbled more than 4 percent on Thursday and the Nasdaq lost 5 percent on fear the United States is staring at another recession and that Europe's sovereign debt crisis is swallowing two of its largest economies.