The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 635 points today, but it shed more than 200 of those points after President Obama began speaking on the economy this afternoon.

At a press conference at the White House today, Obama tried to brush aside the recent downgrade of the U.S. credit rating by Standard & Poor’s from AAA to AA+. (Markets rise, fall during trading after S&P downgrade)

“No matter what some agency may say, we’ve always been and always will be a triple-A country,” Obama said.

The markets weren’t encouraged, however. The Dow closed below 11,000 for the first time since last November. All three major U.S. stock indexes sank between 5 percent and 7 percent. Overall, U.S. stocks have fallen 15 percent during the past two weeks.

A graph prepared by a conservative political action group American Crossroads shows the stock market’s continued sell-off after Obama starts what the group calls his “vanity press conference.”

“If anything, President Obama’s saber-rattling on raising taxes and even more debt-financed spending drove the market down even further,” said Steven Law, president and CEO of American Crossroads. “If Obama can just cut out the vanity pressers for a while, that would be a positive step toward pulling out of this nosedive.”