YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: After a back-and-forth start to the day, stocks again succumbed to selling pressure in a continuation of the four week trend that has taken the S&P 500 down 16% during that time. Today, the S&P 500 lost another 1.5%.

Shares of Hewlett Packard (HPQ 23.60, -5.91) fell after the company announced yesterday that it will sell its PC business and acquire European data analytics company Autonomy. In other news, the company reported slightly better than expected earnings of $1.10 per share (Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.11 per share) and saw in-line revenues of $31.2 billion. The company did however announce downside guidance of $1.12-1.16 per share (Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.31 per share) and revenues of $32.1-32.5 billion (Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $33.99 billion).

Financials were one of the worst performing sectors in the S&P 500, trading down 2.0% collectively. Bank of America (BAC 6.97, -0.04) lost 0.6% after announcing they will cut 3,500 jobs this quarter.

Clearwire (CLWR 3.01, +0.70) saw strong gains of 30% following a Bloomberg report that Sprint (S 3.42, -0.07) will buy the remaining equity in the company that it doesn't already own.

Intuit (INTU 43.65, +3.35) was among the top performers today after beating on both the top and bottom lines. The company announced earnings of $0.02 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.00. Revenues rose 10.4% YoY to $593 million versus the $583.7 million consensus. Management issued in-line guidance for full year 2012, expecting earnings per share of $2.85-2.94, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $2.85 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate and revenues of $4.19-4.29 billion vs. $4.2 billion Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Treasuries across most of the complex finished little changed with outperformance coming from the long bond. Today's quiet session saw the 10-yr yield settle at 2.071%.

Next week's calendar is relatively light until the end of the week, which brings the annual Jackson Hole economic policy meeting next week (Aug 26-28), where central bankers and economists will be discussing the current economic situation. We've already seen a bit of this, but we would expect speculation about Fed acitivity to intensify in the coming week as we approach that meeting. Prior to that however, econ data of interest includes New Home Sales (Tues), Durable Orders (Wed), and revised GDP and Michigan Sentiment on Friday. There are also ~70 companies we cover reporting earnings next week, including a number of specialty retailers. Some of the more interesting reports out next week include: Tuesday: HNZ, WSM; Wednesday: AEO, TOL, AMAT; Thursday: P and Friday: TIF.

Precious metals were once again beneficiaries of the flight to safety on continued concerns about global economies. In overnight trade gold futures rallied to a new all time high at $1881.40, while silver surged to its best levels, at $42.64, since May 3. Neither metal extended their respective rally after pit trade opened. Gold pulled back to near the $1850 mark and spent the remainder of the session chopping around that area. Silver pulled back to the $41.50 mark but manage to rebound off that level to finish near highs. Gold ended with gains of 1.6% at $1851.50 per ounce, while silver finished up 3.9% to $42.30 per ounce.

Sept crude oil, which settled higher by 0.2% to $82.26 per barrel, had an uneventful end to the day as it chopped around the flat line for most of the afternoon. Earlier in the session futures did manage to recoup overnight losses, where they traded as low as $79.17, but it trade was quiet after that. Sept natural gas ended higher by 1.3% to $3.94 per MMBtu.

Advancing Sectors: None

Declining Sectors: Consumer Staples XLP (-0.2%), Healthcare XLV (-0.3%), Utilities XLU (-0.6%), Telecom IYZ (-1.0%), Consumer Discretionary XLY (-1.1%), Materials XLB (-1.2%), Industrials XLI (-1.2%), Energy XLE (-1.4%), Financials XLF (-1.5%), Technology XLK (-2.1%)DJ30 -172.93 NASDAQ -38.59 SP500 -17.12 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 721/2.33 bln/1860 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 732/1.51 bln/2320