US Stocks Weaken Again; Eyes on Europe Markets

Bob Pisani is off; this post was written by CNBC producer Robert Hum.

U.S. stocks deteriorated in the last hour, but are now off their lows as of this writing. The S&P 500 broke below its support level of 1249 (its March intraday low), and volume in the S&P 500 SPDRs picked up.

Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Composite dropped into negative territory for the year, joining the S&P 500, Russell 2000, and Transports. The Dow Industrials is the only major index that is still clinging on to gains this year (it's still up 200 points YTD).

Just as U.S. stocks did yesterday afternoon, European stocks accelerated their declines as it approached their 11:30am ET close. Germany’s DAX fell 3.5 percent, dropping as much as 8.5 percent on the week (that’s just 3 days!). Over in the U.K., the FTSE 100 breached its March, dropping to an 8 month low.

In Greece, where equities are nearly 4 percent lower on the day, there were headlines coming from the country’s Finance Minister warning that “the situation in the Euro zone is not developing in a reassuring way…there is pressure at the heart of the euro zone.”

Also not helping…lackluster U.S. economic data released at 10am ET this morning. ISM Services disappointed the Street, falling to 52.7 in July – its lowest level since February 2010. Factory orders also showed weakness, falling 0.8%, just below estimates.

_____________________________
Bookmark CNBC Data Pages:

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

_____________________________

_____________________________

Want updates whenever a Trader Talk blog is filed? Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/BobPisani.

Questions? Comments? [e-mail]