Financial Sector In The Red As Fears Of Double-Dip Recession Seem Real

The financial sector remained mostly in the red, despite leading financial stocks narrowing their losses for the day. Financial stocks had gone deep into the negative territory in the morning trading session, after weak economic data released today made fears of a double-dip recession seem real. The Financial Select Sector SPDR exchange-traded fund was down about 1%, while S&P 500 lost 0.61%. Regional banks took the worst hit today, with KeyCorp KEY slipping about 4% and Lincoln National Group LNC losing about 2.5%. Regions Financial RF and SunTrust Banks STI were both down about 2%. Among the larger banks, Bank of America Corp BAC, which lost 0.07%, was the worst performer. Citigroup C was the only silver lining in the otherwise black cloud, as it inched up on news of the Treasury Department selling another 1.1 billion shares of the company. Doug Penn, research director at RCM Capital Management, said that the financial-legislation bill, which is about to win final approval on Capitol Hill, is not the reason for the financial sector’s disappointing performance during this week. "What we saw this last week isn't really related to the bill. It's just reflecting concerns about the economy…. Investors are nervous about whether we'll roll back into a recession," Penn added. Read more from Benzinga's Markets.