US Market Commentary(After Market Close): Participants Push Stocks Broadly Lower

Stocks dropped in broad-based fashion after they failed to extend an early gain and the U.S. dollar made another strong move off of its yearly low.

The major indices were been up solidly in the early going, but the S&P 500 struggled to break above the 1090 zone and the Nasdaq 100 ran into resistance when it approached the 2009 highs that it had set last week. As stocks stalled, sellers stepped in and undercut the early advance. That caused stocks to drop sharply and spend the rest of the afternoon trading in negative territory.

A stronger dollar also weighed on stocks. The greenback has now gained ground against a basket of foreign currencies for three straight sessions, the latest of which took it 0.7% higher in its best single-session percentage move of the past month. That made for particular trouble against multinationals and materials stocks, which dropped 2.5%.

Monsanto (MON 70.69, -4.54) created an additional drag on the materials sector. The stock was caught up in chatter that an analyst issued pessimistic comments about the chemical company's pricing efforts.

Financials were also among the worst performers this session. The sector sank 2.5% as bank stocks tumbled 4.1%, based on the KBW Banking Index. Weakness surrounding banking issues stemmed from a downgrade by Rochdale of regional lenders Fifth Third (FITB 9.52, -0.82) and SunTrust (STI 19.85, -1.14).

There weren't any real leaders for participants to follow this session. Dow component Verizon (VZ 28.64, -0.21) was one of the only widely-held companies to report its latest results this morning. The integrated telecom giant posted better-than-expected adjusted earnings of $0.60 per share for the third quarter, but they were largely dismissed, leaving telecom to fall to a 1.3% loss.

All 10 major sectors finished the session in the red. Seven of them suffered losses in excess of 1%.

Despite widespread weakness in the equity markets, Treasuries suffered. As such, the benchmark 10-year Note dropped roughly 18 ticks, which took its yield above 3.5% for the first time since August. Its weakness seemed to worsen in the wake of better-than-average results for an auction of 5-year TIPS.