YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: Stocks finished near their worst levels of the session, and closed lower for a fourth consecutive day. Today's sell off pushed all three of the major averages to their lowest levels since March 23. Selling was paced by a 1.1% drop in both the S&P and Nasdaq while the Dow outperformed, slipping 0.5%.

Financials continue to underperform the broader market as today's 2.0% slide pushed the S&P 500 Financial Index to its lowest level since early December. Citigroup (C 38.07, -1.78) was the biggest decliner amongst heavyweights, losing 4.5%, but other banking giants like Bank of America (BAC 10.83, -0.45), Wells Fargo (WFC 26.26, -0.60), and JP Morgan Chase (JPM 40.53, -1.04) were also hit hard.

Energy shares were under pressure all session long, losing 2.0% collectively. Selling coincided with West Texas Intermediate crude oil slipping back below $100 per barrel to finish the day near $98.80. Exxon Mobil (XOM 80.29, -0.89) and Chevron (CVX 99.68, -1.32) were among the better performers in the space losing 1.1% and 1.3% respectively.

Apple (AAPL 338.04, -5.04) was back in the headlines today after making several announcements at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. Steve Jobs made his first public appearance since March and introduced the new OS X Lion operating system for Macs, as well as the iOS 5 operating system for mobile devices, and their new iCloud Internet media service. The stock remains range bound between $330 and $360 as it has for much of 2011.

Gold lost its luster with a late session slide as the yellow metal finished the day little changed near $1543 after hitting a session high of $1555. Shares of Newmont Mining (NEM 53.44, -1.31) were hit hard despite the flat finish in gold while Freeport-McMoran (FCX 49.79, -0.14) saw a modest loss.

Harley-Davidson (HOG 36.86, +0.99) gained 2.8% and finished as a top performer in the S&P 500 as rumors of a private equity takeover of the company pushed shares as high as $38.24 in early action.

An early morning sell off in the Treasury complex ran the 10-yr yield briefly above 3.04% before easing back to 3.00% over the final half hour of trading. Today's modest slide pushed the 10-yr yield up just one basis point.

July crude oil shed 1.2% to close at $99.01 per barrel. Demand concerns, following last week's poor econ data, and discussions that OPEC will hike output production at Wednesday's meeting, pushed crude oil lower for the second session. July natural gas rallied for 2.6% to close at $4.83 per MMBtu. Forecasts for warmer weather across the country, expected to boost demand through air conditioning, helped prices trade back to near their 2011 highs at $4.879.

Despite strength in the dollar, precious metals finished higher today, with August gold gaining 0.3% to settle at $1546.80 per ounce while July silver finished up 1.8% to $36.84 per ounce. The flight to safety helped gold ended higher for a second straight session.

The dollar index finished near its best levels of the session as a late-day sell off pushed the euro back below 1.46. The Australian dollar held steady near 1.0715 ahead of tonight's interest rate decision by the Reserve Bank of Australia. Analysts are expecting the central bank to hold its benchmark rate steady at 4.75%.DJ30 -61.30 NASDAQ -30.22 SP500 -13.99 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 587/1.65 bln/2013 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 628/726.2 mln/2385