Europe is coming back into focus today, and not in a good way. Rumors were swirling in Spain that EU officials had been urging their Spanish counterparts to start the process of a bailout from the IMF and ECB. Coupled with a strike due to a renewed austerity push, you had the makings of a down day across the continent.

Italian markets also took a beating on the day, down over 3% on the day. Growth fears are returning in force across the continent and due to the Chinese data and US macro data doing little to allay fears. EU sentiment indexes also declined unexpectedly which helped lead the sell-off.

Domestically the major indices are negative today. Currently, the Dow is down nearly 70 points to 13,075. The Nasdaq and S&P500 are both down 31 and 12 points respectively. [Read more...]