Stocks Sitting Near Session Lows

Heading into the last hour of trading, the U.S. stock market has taken another mild beating. While the magnitude of losses may not raise eyebrows, the stock market has now fallen for five straight days. At last check, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had shed nearly 100 points and was trading at 12,500. If this level is broken to the downside it could trigger more selling heading into the close. The S&P 500 had registered a decline of nearly 13 points and was sitting at 1,312.00. The next level that the bears will obviously want to take out is 1,300, which could happen tomorrow. The Nasdaq Composite has been the worst performer by a fairly large margin. At last check the Nasdaq was trading down roughly 43 points, or 1.48%, at 2,831. All of the major sectors are currently sitting in the red, with capital goods and transportation both nursing losses of more than 2%. Also sticking out in a bad way are the financials and tech stocks, indicating that traders and investors are definitely batting down the hatches and unloading riskier securities. In the commodity complex, oil is continuing its free-fall while precious metals are seeing sizable gains. At last check, NYMEX crude futures had shed 0.30% to $92.53. COMEX gold futures were last trading up 2.47% to $1,574.50 while silver had added 2.97% to $28.00. The only currency pair that has really mattered for the last couple of years, the EUR/USD, was down slightly at $1.2708.