MIDDAY LUNCH

Dow 10607.91  -175.04, Nasdaq 2337.63  -56.73, S&P 1135.24  -22.20 

Stocks have been under pressure all morning, but are currently trading off their session lows.  Today’s weakness again is coming from the fiscal mess of several EU countries. 

Most of the attention has been placed on the PIIGS –Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain but now some economists are questioning the stability of France. There are some analysts predicting that France’s sovereign debt will be downgraded.

This has caused the Euro to lose more ground to the U.S. dollar pushing the dollar to a new 52 week high and European markets to sell off again.

Additionally, this has affected commodity prices, since they are traded in dollars.  The CRB Commodity Index is down -2.4%. Oil is the source of weakness trading at $71.70 down -3.4% to a three month low.

Over 95% of the S&P 500 companies are trading lower led by the financial sector which is down -2.7%. Some of the biggest losers are Visa (V) 76.53 -9.19, -10.73% and Mastercard (MA) 212.64 -19.66 -8.46% both of these stocks are down on news of a Senate approval that adopted an amendment on interchange fees on debit transactions.   

Another source of weakness today is the tech sector, they are down -2.6%. The loss comes amid a -4.0% drop among semiconductor stocks.