NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks plunged driving the Dow Jones industrials down more than 240 points in their second-biggest drop of the year, as troubles piled up for subprime lenders.Investors, bracing for a wilting economy, fled the already deflated subprime mortgage sector on more news that lenders New Century Financial, Accredited Home Lenders Holding and General Motors Acceptance’s residential unit are facing financial problems. Bolstering the belief that the struggles are widespread, the Mortgage Bankers Association said new foreclosures surged to an all-time high in the last quarter of 2006.

The subprime lending worries, coupled with anxiety over the Commerce Department’s report that US retailers eked out a meager 0.1 percent rise in sales last month, knocked down all three major stock indexes about two percent.

“The market’s still jittery, and they’re starting to get full-blown concerns over a bleed in the larger subprime mortgage market,” said Matt Kelmon, portfolio manager of the Kelmoore Strategy Funds.

The subprime market is a relatively small sector of the US economy, Kelmon noted. Tuesday’s selling was accentuated by options expiring soon and by volatility that has increased since the market’s big plunge two weeks ago — a 416-point drop in the Dow that was caused partially by the escalating distress among subprime lenders, who provide mortgages to people with poor credit.

According to preliminary calculations, the Dow fell 242.66, or 1.97 percent, to 12,075.96. The blue chip index is now down about 710 points, more than five percent, from its record close reached February 20, leading many investors to believe that the market’s correction is not over.

The Dow is still above the low for the year reached March 5 and has yet to slip below the 12,000 level, which it reached for the first time last October.

Broader stock indicators also fell by their largest amounts since February 27. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 28.65, or 2.04 percent, to 1,377.95, and the Nasdaq composite index slid 51.72, or 2.15 percent, to 2,350.57.

Volume on the New York Stock Exchange was high at 1.94 billion shares — more than the 1.47 billion shares at the same point on Monday but lower than the 2.38 billion shares traded on February 27, when the Dow took its largest plunge since 2001.

Trading collars were triggered Tuesday afternoon when the New York Stock Exchange Composite index lost more than 180 points. The collars put a chokehold on certain orders, forbidding transactions that capitalise on discrepancies in prices.

Subprime lending jitters and sluggish retail sales drove up bond prices. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note fell to 4.50 percent from 4.56 percent late Monday.

Gold prices fell, and the dollar was lower against most major currencies. A drop in the dollar versus the yen renewed anxiety about traders unwinding their yen “carry trades,” or taking money out of high-yielding dollar assets bought with the low-yielding yen.

The subprime worries have been mounting for weeks now, but came to a head when the New York Stock Exchange took steps to de-list shares of New Century shares, which said Tuesday that the Securities and Exchange Commission would be probing accounting errors that inflated its loan portfolio.

“Investors are poking around to see how much rotted wood there is here,” said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer for Harris Private Bank. “It looks like the notion was subprime was contained, and now we’re starting to see that maybe this problem has moved into other areas of the market. That’s causing investors great concern.”

Accredited Home contributed to the anxiety after it said it is in need of cash. Its shares plunged $7.43, or 65 percent, to $3.97.

Wall Street sold off further when the Mortgage Bankers Association’s quarterly report on the mortgage market seemed to confirm investors’ worries that the entire sector is struggling and could weaken further: not only did new foreclosures hit a record high in the fourth quarter of last year, but late mortgage payments soared to a three-year high.

Late in the session, General Motors Acceptance — General Motors’s part-owned financing arm — reported that its fourth-quarter profit rose, but struggles in its Residential Capital LLC unit were eating into earnings. That news gave investors extra motivation to sell.

“The fear index is rising,” said Steven Cochrane, senior managing director for Moody’s Economy.com.