Financials One of the Worst Performing Sectors as Dollar Strengthens

The financial group is one of the worst performing sectors today as we have several factors working against these stocks. The Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF (NYSE: XLF), commonly referred to as "the XLF", is down more than 1.7% today, underperforming the Dow which is currently down 83 pts, or about 0.8%.

After opening flat and trading just modestly lower around 11am EDT, finanicals -- and the entire stock market -- turned sharply lower as the dollar began catching a bid. For quite some time now, the trade has gone stocks/gold/commodities in one direction, and the dollar in the other. Today this move has been dominating trader's decisions.

Also adding to downside today, we are hearing rumors that the S&P could downgrade Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) and several other banks. When questioned on the reports, an S&P spokesperson said they did not downgrade Bank of America and that the rating agency could not comment if anything is in the works.

Finally, controversial banking analyst Dick Bove downgraded several banks this morning: Fifth Third (Nasdaq: FITB) and SunTrust (NYSE: STI) to Sell and US Bancorp (NYSE: USB) to Neutral.

Elsewhere in the Financial sector:

• Bank of America - down 5% to $15.39
  
• Citigroup (NYSE: C) - down 2.5% to $4.35
  
• JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) - down 2.3% to $44.17
  
• Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) - down 1.7% to $28.80
  
• Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) - down 0.6% to $179.35
  
• Fifth Third - down 6% to $9.71
  
• SunTrust - down 4.6% to $20.01
  
• US Bancorp - down 2.9% to $24.22

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