The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 1.6 percent early Tuesday,
bringing it into what many consider to be a bear market. The yield on
the 10-year Treasury note fell near a record low as investors piled into
lower-risk assets.
Stocks fell broadly as investors worried that Greece might be
edging closer to default, which would cause heavy losses for banks that
hold Greek debt and rattle global financial markets. Greece has said it
wouldn't be able to make budget cuts it had agreed to as part of a deal
to receive emergency loans.
The S&P 500 fell 20 points, or 1.8 percent, to 1,079 as of
10:15 a.m. (1415 GMT). That brought the widely used index 21 percent
below its April 29 high of 1,363, meeting the criteria of a bear market.
The Dow Jones industrial average lost 207, or 1.9 percent, to
10,448.The Dow is 18 percent below its recent peak, just shy of the 20
percent decline market watchers consider to be a bear market.
The Nasdaq composite dropped 28, or 1.2 percent, to 2,307.
Bank of America fell 3.9 percent, the most of the 30 stocks
that make up the Dow average. American Express Co. and General Electric
Co. each lost 3 percent.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 1.72 percent, just
above its record low of 1.71 percent reached on Sept. 22. Bond yields
fall as prices rise.
In corporate news, Apple Inc. is widely expected to announce
the newest version of its iPhone Tuesday. Tim Cook, who took over the
company's CEO role from co-founder Steve Jobs in August, is expected to
unveil the new smartphone at Apple's Cupertino headquarters. The company
lost 0.6 percent in early trading.
Bank of America Corp. lost 7 percent to $5.15 as investors
continued to be troubled by its exposure to soured mortgages securities
and a several-day outage of its website. The company's stock lost 9
percent Monday to $5.53, a level not seen since 2009.
European indexes also declined sharply. Benchmark indexes in Germany, France, and Spain each lost more than 3 percent.
