It was very close to a mirror image of yesterday's trading today on wall street. The financials led the way to the downside on credit worries and terrible earnings reports in the sector, and oil prices once again surged, topping $88 a barrel. The Dow finished lower by 72 points on the day. The Nasdaq lost 16 points. The S&P 500 fell by 10 points, or 0.66%. 
Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC) reported a very disappointing earnings report, missing both the bottom line and the revenue number. WFC shares lost nearly 4%, and created a widespread selloff in financials. Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C) lost 3.09%, finishing just above a 52 week low. KeyCorp (NYSE:KEY) missed second quarter estimates badly and guided estimates down, saying that it now expects 68 to 74 cents per share in the current quarter, below estimates of 75 cents per share. KEY shares fell 5.9% on the day. Many other regional banks were very weak following the warning from Key. Huntington Bancshares Inc. (Nasdaq:HBAN) lost 4.88% and Fifth Third Bancorp (Nasdaq:FITB) shares fell 4.63%.
Basic material stocks were also quite weak on the day. United States Steel Corporation (NYSE:X) fell 3.95% today to lead the major material stocks lower. Weyerhauser Company (NYSE:WY) lost 2.95% on the day. Freeport McMoran (NYSE:FCX) shares fell by 2.6%, extending its losses from the last couple of days.
The infrastructure group, one of the strongest performers of the past few months, took a breather today. Fluor Corporation (NYSE:FLR) lost 3.2% of its value today. The Shaw Group (NYSE:SGR) fell by 2.34%. McDermott International (NYSE:MDR) shares fell by 2.45% on the day.
Volume was fairly heavy today, as the Nasdaq traded 2.1 billion shares and the NYSE 1.3 billion. Of note is the fact that the Nasdaq has been seeing accelerated trading volume of late in relation to the NYSE, which has had fairly low volume of late. Some market participants see this as a bearish sign, saying that this shows that the bubble is coming back. I think this is a very debatable point, but I wanted to put it out there for readers to chew on.
Speaking to the change in sentiment over the last couple days is the fact that new lows outpaced new highs on both the NYSE and the Nasdaq today for the first time in quite some time.
Much was made today of Ben Bernanke's comments last night that the housing market is a "significant drag" on the economy. Certainly the housing market is in terrible shape right now, and it is very clearly a huge drag on the economy, but who didn't know this already? Using that as an explanation for today's losses doesn't make much sense to me.
After the bell today several bellweathers reported robust earnings, so maybe the losing streak on the street will end tommorrow. Later tonight I will post an earnings review of the major earnings reports out today.
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