Stocks retreated and then rebounded this morning after the Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 400 points yesterday. But concerns over what will happen to the car industry and more negative economic news could weigh on investor confidence even more, Bloomberg reported.

The Dow was down 147 points this morning, but by 10 a.m., was up slightly, to just below 8,000. As of 11:20 a.m., it was back down nearly 60 points to 7,937.70. The Nasdaq composite index was down 5.23 points to 1,381.19 and the Standard & Poor’s 500 index was down 11.94 points to 794.64.

Yields on Treasury securities also fell to all-time lows on concern that one of the big three U.S. automakers will file for bankruptcy. In a note to investors yesterday, JPMorgan Chase & Co. predicted that the Federal Reserve would cut interest rates to zero percent over the next two years to stop inflation.

Investors have lost confidence after Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson abandoned plans to use the $700 billion bailout program to buy bad debt from banks.

The Conference Board’s index of leading U.S. economic indicators fell 0.8 percent in October after rising 0.1 percent in September. The index points to the direction of the economy over the next three to six months. Six of the 10 indicators caused the index to fall, especially plunging stock prices, which caused a 0.89 percentage point drop. The confidence component took away 0.29 of a percentage point.

Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp.’s stock also lost more than 2 percent as oil fell below $50 a barrel for the first time in nearly two years.

Global markets were down today, with Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 average falling 6.9 percent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng benchmark down 4 percent. Britain’s FTSE 100 index was down 2.2 percent and Germany’s DAX was down 3.3 percent.