New Delhi, March 3 -- A worldwide sell-off for stocks is slamming onto Wall Street Tuesday, and oil prices are leaping even higher as worries rise that the war with Iran is widening and may do more sustained damage to the global economy than feared.

The S&P 500 dropped 1.8% in early trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 907 points, or 1.9%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 2.1% lower.

It was just a day ago that U.S. stocks opened with sharp losses, only to recover all of them and end the day with slight gains. But that was with the caveat that oil prices did not jump too high, like to more than $100 per barrel.

On Tuesday, oil prices got closer to that mark and raised more alarms. The price for a ...