Stocks Hammered To Start Trading Week

The major U.S. equity averages ran into some heavy selling on Monday to kick off the trading week. The declines came amid a stronger dollar, sharply lower euro, a bankruptcy filing by futures brokerage MF Global

and rising Italian bond yields. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 276 points, punching through the 12,000 level to close at 11,955. The widely watched blue-chip index traded in a range between 11,954 and 12,229, finishing right on the lows of the session. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF

plunged 2.41% to $125.50. Volume was light with just 220.5 million SPY shares trading hands compared to a 3-month daily average of 322 million. The PowerShares QQQ Trust ETF

, which tracks the performance of the Nasdaq 100, lost 1.68% to $57.95. The QQQ is up 6.39% in 2011. Crude oil was moderately lower on the session. NYMEX crude futures lost 0.92% to $92.46. ICE Brent crude futures shed 0.63% to $109.22. The United States Oil Fund ETF

shed 0.80% to $35.74. Gold also drifted lower on Monday. COMEX gold futures lost 1.72% to $1,717.10. The SPDR Gold Trust ETF

posted a decline of 1.34% to $167.34. Silver futures shed 2.80% to $34.30. Money flowed into Treasuries, which rallied sharply. The iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF

soared 3.97% to $115.88 amid a fearful environment. The yield on the 10-Year Note plunged 20.1 basis points to 2.12%. The risk off atmosphere was spurred in part by a surging U.S. Dollar. The PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish ETF

, which tracks the performance of the greenback versus a basket of foreign currencies, climbed 1.94% to $21.57. The closely watched EUR/USD pair plunged 1.77% to $1.3923.