homeless italian bum
Bill Chiocchi
Europe steals the headlines.
First the scoreboard:
Dow: 12,715.9, -213.6, -1.6%

S&P 500: 1,358.5, -23.6, -1.7%

NASDAQ: 2,991.2, -55.8, -1.8%

And now the top stories:
  • It was an absolutely brutal day for European financial markets today. 
  •  The Italy's FTSE MIB index crashed 4.98 percent. 
  • Spain's IBEX tumbled 2.98 percent.  Borrowing costs across the eurozone surged as fears of the debt crisis escalated once again. 
  •  The spread between German and Italian yields jumped to around 400 basis points. 
  •  The Spanish 10-year yield almost touched 6 percent. 


  • Earlier, China provided no help to market sentiment by reporting lower-than-expected growth in imports and exports in March.  This reinvigorated the China bears who are forecasting a hard landing for the world's second largest economy.  However, one analyst – Deutsche Bank's Rob Clifford – thinks that all this bickering of a hard or soft landing is silly because the economy already landed years earlier.

  • We'll learn a lot more about China after the bell when aluminum giant Alcoa announces its first quarter earnings.  China is the largest consumer of aluminum in the world. 

  • Just two weeks after announcing disappointing quarterly earnings and a major new restructuring initiative, Best Buy unexpectedly announced that its CEO Brian Dunn would be resigning.  

  • Supervalu exploded higher today.  The grocery chain announced adjusted EPS of 38 cents per share, which beat analysts' expectation for 35 cents.  Like most companies in the S&P 500, Supervalu's EPS reflected a year-over-year decline.  Perhaps this is an indicator that stocks will be able to rise further despite earnings declines. 

  • What are the analysts saying?  Morgan Stanley's Adam Parker reiterated his bearish call for the S&P 500 to fall to 1,167 by year-end.  For people who are afraid of risky financial assets,Marc Faber has what he considers to be a safe-haven investment: real estate.

  • On the more optimistic side is BlackRock's Bob Doll.  He reminded us that a 5 to 7 percent correction isn't unusual for stocks.

  • In other news, Apple's market cap touched $600 billion.