Yesterday's Dow Leaders Are Today's BIG Losers

Talk about choppy trading...Dow Transports led yesterday, UP 135 points, today they lead the decline, DOWN 135 POINTS! Techs were strong yesterday, leading decline today; consumer discretionary like retail and home builders all led the market up yesterday, all weak today.

In other words, all the higher beta names are weak.

I noted yesterday that U.S. stocks had recently been decoupling from the weakness in Europe and China, and that while it was not hitting new highs, flat trading compared to the declines in Europe and China in the past two weeks was certainly a form of decoupling.

Several traders wrote in to say that the decoupling argument, while good for day trading, was a dangerous game to play long-term. The reason: the argument did not work long-term for the collapse in 2008.

This morning, the Shanghai Index is at a 7-month low, most of the major European indices are at or near 2-month lows, and the S&P 500 is near a 1-month low.

Spain's Prime Minister, Jose Luis Zapatero, angrily dismissed rumors that Spain would seek billions in aid from Europe as "complete madness."

• Is Spain the Next EU Country To Suffer Debt Crisis?

Counterpoint:

• Europe's Debt Crisis About to End?

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Big Dow Losers (as of this writing):

AMR

Burlington Northern

YRC World

FedEx

Continental

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Bookmark CNBC Data Pages:

• The Dow 30 — in Real Time
• Oil, Gold, Natural Gas Prices Now
• US Dollar, Minute by Minute

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