Major Averages Close In The Red But Well Off Worst Levels Of The Day

(RTTNews) - Stocks moved mostly lower over the course of the trading day on Wednesday, extending the sell-off that was seen in the previous session. With the continued pullback on the day, the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 fell to their worst closing levels in a month.

After falling sharply in the previous session, electronic storage stocks showed another substantial move to the downside on the day. The NYSE Arca Disk Drive Index plunged by 3.4 percent to its lowest closing level in over six months.

DataLink (DTLK) and Imation (IMN) posted particularly steep losses within the storage sector after reporting disappointing first quarter results.

Significant weakness was also visible among gold stocks, as reflected by the 3 percent loss posted by the NYSE Arca Gold Bugs Index. The weakness in the sector came as gold for June delivery fell $2.90 to $1,190.80 an ounce.

Steel, software, and telecom stocks also saw notable weakness on the day, moving lower along with most of the other major sectors.

The major averages climbed well off their lows for the session going into the close but remained stuck in the red. The Dow fell 86.22 points or 0.5 percent to 17,841.98, the Nasdaq slid 19.68 points or 0.4 percent to 4,919.64 and the S&P 500 dropped 9.31 points or 0.5 percent to 2,080.15.