Stocks substantially cut sharp early losses Monday as Wall Street attempted to make a comeback after the Dow initially tumbled as much as 1,089 points in the opening minutes of trading. In afternoon trading, the Dow climbed back from the early morning plunge and was down 280 points, or 1.7%. The Standard & Poor's 500 index dropped as much as 100 points as it dipped into correction territory — which is defined as a drop of 10% or more — before cutting its losses to about 35 points, or a drop of 1.9%.