More troubling economic signs sent Wall Street tumbling yesterday, but there are signs stocks may recover a bit today.

A day after the U.S. government announced a massive intervention that officials hoped would boost investor confidence, new data showed that consumers aren’t shopping, buying new cars and are opting to dress their kids in old clothes for school this year, instead of buying new ones. More economic data are due to be released today.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke also warned that the nation should not expect an economic rebound any time soon.

“Stabilization of the financial markets is a critical first step, but even if they stabilize as we hope they will, broader economic recovery will not happen right away,” Bernanke said in a speech to the Economic Club of New York. “Economic activity will fall short of potential for a time.”

The Dow Jones Industrial average fell 733.08, or 7.9 percent, its second-biggest point drop in history, while the broader Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index sank 90.17 points, or 9 percent — the most since the “Black Monday” crash of 1987. U.S. retail data released Wednesday showed a 1.2 percent drop in sales in September — the sharpest decline in years. It was the third consecutive monthly fall and came during the height of the vital “back-to-school” shopping season.

The Treasury Department this week said it would spend $250 billion to take a temporary ownership stake in many of the nation’s banks and financial institutions to insure their debt. Bernanke also signaled that the central bank may again lower interest rates.

But the United States isn’t the only country affected by the credit crunch. Markets in Europe and Asia plunged Thursday and crude oil prices fell after seeing signs of a serious global economic slowdown.

Meanwhile, governments around the world are trying to shore up banks to keep the economy moving.

Reuters reports that European Union leaders, meeting in Brussels, are expected to call for action to combat economic decline, including support for industry.

Switzerland’s two largest banks — UBS and Credit Suisse — became the latest to say they were receiving emergency funding as the country’s government and other investors moved to shore them up. Switzerland gave UBS, the European bank with the biggest losses from the credit crisis, a $59.2 billion rescue and pushed Credit Suisse Group to raise funds.

Japan’s Prime Minister, Taro Aso, said Washington may need to pump even more cash into its banks to restore investor confidence. The European Central Bank said it would provide up to $6.83 billion to Hungary to pump up liquidity. And the International Monetary Fund was trying to find ways to aid Ukraine’s economy.

In other financial news:

-Citigroup posted its fourth straight quarterly loss — a total net loss of $2.82 billion, or 60 cents per share — hurt by increasing credit losses and write-downs tied to complex and low-quality debt, Reuters reports. It also laid off more employees.

-Merrill Lynch reported a third-quarter net loss of $7.5 billion on Thursday — worse than analysts expected — on write-downs and credit losses on complex debt securities. Merrill, which last month agreed to be taken over by Bank of America, also said it would issue $10 billion of non-voting preferred stock and related warrants to the U.S. Treasury under the government program that gave Bank of America $25 billion earlier this month.

-New data shows that weekly U.S. wages dropped by 2.5 percent in September compared to a year ago, the 12th straight month in which wages have been down. But the number of new people signing up for unemployment benefits last week dropped. Even with the decline, new claims totaled 461,000.