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Dow drops 211
Associated PressNEW YORK -- Nervous investors turned against the financial sector today, sending stocks of Wall Street's largest investment firms sharply lower on fears that the stock market's weakness will hurt their profits.
The decline deflated a budding recovery in the tech sector and ended analysts' hopes that yesterday's rally signaled a reversal of the pessimism that has driven the market lower in recent weeks.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 211.43, or 2 percent, to 10,323.92. The Nasdaq composite index fell 65.26 to 3,205.35. In earlier trading, the index had risen as much as 115.23 as investors went on a brief bargain-hunting spree. The Standard & Poor's 500 fell 17.53 to 1,381.52.
Decliners beat advancers by a 4-to-3 margin on the New York Stock Exchange, with 1,610 down, 1,261 up and 541 unchanged. NYSE volume totaled 976.23 million shares vs. 1.14 billion yesterday. The Russell 2000 index fell 5.57 to 456.17. The NYSE composite index dropped 5.38 to 629.80; and the American Stock Exchange composite index slipped 4.40 to 883.49.
The 30-year Treasury bond's price rose 1 6/32 points, or $18.88 per $1,000 face amount, it's biggest gain since April 7. Its yield fell 8 basis points to 6.11 percent, the lowest since May 2. The 10-year note rose 19/32 point to 100 26/32, pushing its yield down 8 points to 6.39 percent. Financial stocks plummeted after a Merrill Lynch analyst said Goldman Sachs is likely to miss second-quarter earnings estimates of $1.47 per share.