YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: Stocks logged their first loss in five sessions as weakness among bank stocks imbued broader market trade and the dollar pared its loss. Data was of little consequence this session.

A lack of direction in the early going left stocks vulnerable to a broader slide that was led by bank stocks. Banks succumbed to a concerted selling effort related to concern regarding banks' handling of foreclosures and representation of mortgage loan pools for use in mortgage backed securities.

Given the uncertainty surrounding the situation, participants opted to dump a broad range of banks in high volume. That dropped the KBW Bank Index below its 50-day moving average for a 2.6% loss, its worst in more than one month.

Materials stocks were also hit relatively hard after the sector entered into today's trade with a month-to-date gain of more than 6%. Profit taking sent the sector 0.9% lower.

Telecom outperformed for almost the entire session. The sector's 0.3% advance was led by Dow component Verizon (VZ 32.44, +0.23), which confirmed that it will soon begin to offer the iPad from Apple (AAPL 302.31, +2.17).

The broader market was able to improve its position into the close to finish with a more mild loss. Still, the Volatility Index closed about 8% higher in its sharpest percentage increase since early September.

The dollar also improved its position since dropping to a new 2010 low overnight. Global investors had continued their push against the dollar due to the notion that further quantitative easing could result in a greater number of dollars in circulation. The greenback was able to retrace some of its slide to settle with a 0.6% loss against competing currencies.

Data had little influence on trade. Among the items released, initial jobless claims for the week ended October 9 totaled 462,000, which is more than the 450,000 claims that had been expected, on average, among economists polled by Briefing.com. The latest initial claims figure made for a week-over-week increase of 13,000. Continuing claims fell 112,000 week-over-week to 4.40 million.

The Producer Price Index for September increased 0.4%, just as it did in August. The increase for September exceeds the 0.2% monthly increase that had been widely forecast. Excluding food and energy, producer prices increased a more tepid 0.1% for the second straight month, as expected.

Trade during August resulted in a deficit of $46.3 billion, which is up from the $42.6 billion deficit recorded for the prior month. It was also worse than the $44.5 billion deficit that had been generally expected among economists polled by Briefing.com.

Despite losses among stocks and an increase in volatility, Treasuries fell this session. Most of that was due to another disappointing Treasury auction. Demand for 30-year Bonds was the lowest since December 2009. The Bond dropped about 1.5 points so that its yield climbed to 3.90%.

The CRB Commodity Index had climbed to a new two-year high before it pulled back to close with a fractional gain.

Precious metals provided the most support as gold prices in the continuous contract set a new record high of $1383.90 per ounce overnight. The yellow metal settled with a 0.6% gain at $1378.50 per ounce. Silver prices swung to a new 30-year high of $24.95 per ounce overnight, but pulled back to settle pit trade with a 2.5% gain at $24.54 per ounce.

Natural gas prices rallied from a loss of more than 2% to a gain of more than 1% following news that inventories for the week ended October 8 increased by 91 bcf, which is on par with the build of 92 bcf that had been widely expected. Natural gas prices failed to sustain the bounce and settled with a 0.9% loss at $3.66 per MMBtu.

Oil prices surrendered an early gain to finish pit at $82.68 per barrel, down 0.4%. Prices started their downturn with the release of inventory data for the week ended October 8. The data showed a much smaller-than-expected draw of 416 barrels of crude oil.

Advancing Sectors: Telecom (+0.3%), Tech (+0.1%)
Declining Sectors: Financials (-1.8%), Materials (-0.9%), Industrials (-0.4%), Utilities (-0.2%), Consumer Discretionary (-0.2%), Health Care (-0.2%), Energy (-0.1%)
Unchanged: Consumer StaplesDJ30 -1.51 NASDAQ -5.85 NQ100 -0.1% R2K -0.3% SP400 -0.5% SP500 -4.29 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1202/2.01 bln/1423 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1203/1.11 bln/1773