in hong kong, the hang seng plunged 455. stocks got off to a flying start tuesday then the fed crashed the party. after the year s last meeting, the federal reserve was unexpectedly pessimistic, calling the recovery slow, looking for unemployment to remain high and reaffirming its controversial commitment to buy $600 billion in bonds to stimulate growth. the reaction was swift. first in bonds, the yield on the ten-year treasury note jumped to 3.46%, that s the highest level since may. a huge increase from the end of trade monday. just to put this in perspective, the leap was equivalent to the dow moving 600 points in one day. ironically, part of why the fed is buying bonds is to help lower long-term interest rates, but the higher yield has the opposite effect. wall street reacted with a late afternoon sell-off that hit financials hard. still, the dow managed to close at its high for the year. spirits had been high earlier