Economic Growth Concerns; Disappointing Earnings Cause U.S. Markets

U.S. stocks closed sharply lower Tuesday after weaker earnings and renewed concern over the health of the euro-zone's economy sparked losses across the board. While the major indexes opened the session in negative territory, losses accelerated as the day progressed. At one point the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 262 points.

U.S. stocks fell under pressure early in the session following disappointing earnings from blue-chip stand-outs including 3M (MMM) and DuPont (DD). Though earnings were in-line with estimates, 3M fell short of analyst expectations on quarterly sales and reduced its profit expectations for this year citing "current economic realities." Chemical maker DuPont missed street view estimates for earnings and sales and said it will cut 1,500 jobs and take other steps to increase competitiveness after earnings fell sharply last quarter.

Also adding to today's losses were further concerns over the health of the euro-zone's economy, sparked after Moody's downgraded the credit rating of several regions in Spain. News that a sale of Spanish debt Tuesday met the government's sales target did little to improve sentiment.

Stateside, the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Va., reported a pull-back in manufacturing in the central Atlantic region for the month of October following a slight improvement the month before. In October, the seasonally adjusted composite index of manufacturing activity fell by eleven points to negative 7 from a reading of 4 in September.

Commodities crumbled under pressure. Crude-oil futures closed down $1.98 to $86.67 a barrel, their first close under $87.00 a barrel since June. Gold for December delivery shed 1%, to settle at $1,709.40 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. This was gold's lowest settlement since Sept. 6.

Here's where the markets stood at end-of-day:

Dow Jones Industrial Average down 243.36 (-1.82%) to 13,102.53

S&P 500 down 20.71 (-1.44%) to 1,413.11

Nasdaq Composite Index down 26.50 (-0.88%) to 2,990.46

GLOBAL SENTIMENT

Nikkei 225 Index up 0.04%

Hang Seng Index up 0.68%

Shanghai China Composite Index down 0.86%

FTSE 100 Index down 1.45%

UPSIDE MOVERS:

(+) BSDM, Study shows positive BSD-2000 results.

(+) HLYS, Announced asset purchase agreement with The Evergreen Group and adoption of plan of liquidation and dissolution.

(+) URZ, Gets Wyoming Deep Well Permit

DOWNSIDE MOVERS:

(-) MLI, Reported Q3 EPS, revenues that missed analyst estimates.

(-) MHR, Appointed new chief accounting officer.

(-) TWIN, Reports Q1 earnings shortfall.