Stocks Slammed On Monday (SPY, QQQQ, GLD, USO, TLT, UUP)

The trading week got off to a very shaky start on Monday as stocks sold off throughout the day with the momentum accelerating further to the downside in the final half hour. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 141 points and closed at just above 10,009. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF SPY shed 1.45% to finish at $105.31. Interestingly, volume was very light today with a little more than 162 million SPY shares trading hands versus a 3-month daily average of nearly 233 million. Normally, heavier volume has been coming into the market on down days, which did not take place on Monday. The PowerShares QQQ Trust ETF QQQQ, which tracks the performance of the Nasdaq 100, lost 1.04% to $43.61. The widely traded ETF was able to outperform largely because of the performance of Apple AAPL which accounts for around 20% of the Nasdaq 100. AAPL gained 0.36% to $242.50 on the session. The broader Nasdaq market actually underperformed, losing 1.56% to 2,120. It was a fairly uneventful session in the gold market. COMEX gold futures rose 0.07% to $1,238.80. The SPDR Gold Trust ETF GLD shed 0.08% and closed New York Stock Exchange trading at $120.91. Volume was very light. Crude oil continued its slide on Monday as investors continue to fret over the state of the economic recovery. NYMEX crude futures lost 1.18% to $74.28. The United States Oil Fund ETF USO slid 1.64% to $33.02. Treasuries bounced back in a big way from last Friday's sell off. The iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF TLT surged 1.88% to $107.33. The yield on the 10-Year note tumbled 11.8 basis points to 2.5285%. The U.S. Dollar was stronger on Monday as investors pulled money out of risk assets and sought the liquidity of the dollar. The PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish ETF UUP, which tracks the performance of the dollar versus a basket of foreign currencies, gained 0.29% to $24.14. Buying momentum accelerated throughout the day. The closely watched EUR/USD pair fell hard and is currently trading at $1.266. The recent trading action in the Euro is sending signals that investors are not convinced the sovereign debt problems in the EU have been adequately resolved. Continue to watch for any developments on this front.