Stocks And Commodities Fall Sharply (SPY, QQQQ, GLD, USO, TLT, UUP)

Stock and commodity markets fell on Friday on fears of a potential Chinese rate hike. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 90.5 points lower at 11,192. The widely watched blue-chip index traded in a range between 11,144 and 11,284. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSE: SPY) lost 1.18% to close at $120.20. Volume was heavy with around 239 million SPY shares trading hands compared to a 3-month daily average volume of 194 million shares. The PowerShares QQQ Trust ETF (NASDAQ: QQQQ), which tracks the performance of the Nasdaq 100, lost 1.64% to finish at $52.51. Gold was also hit extremely hard. COMEX gold futures fell 2.69% to $1,365.50. The SPDR Gold Trust ETF (NYSE: GLD) shed 2.88% to close at $133.69. Crude oil plummeted on the day, as well. NYMEX crude futures plunged 3.34% to $84.88. The United States Oil Fund ETF (NYSE: USO) closed 3.62% lower at $36.47. The Treasury market also lost ground on Friday. The iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (NYSE: TLT) lost 0.54% to $95.81. The yield on the 10-Year Note rose 14.2 basis points to 2.79%. The U.S. Dollar was also marginally weaker. The PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish ETF (NYSE: UUP), which tracks the performance of the dollar versus a basket of foreign currencies, lost 0.13% to close at $22.61. The closely watched EUR/USD pair is currently trading at $1.3691.