YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: Revived concerns related to Europe's ability to efficiently and effectively restore financial conditions resulted in another round of aggressive selling.

Stocks extended the prior session's sell-off by suffering another steep slide. Selling pressure was essentially underpinned by the belief that Greece could disrupt the implementation of the eurozone bailout plan by issuing a referendum, although some afternoon headlines suggested that the referendum was unlikely to win support. Selling pressure was exacerbated by dwindling confidence in Italy's financial health, as indicated by a spike in the yields of the country's debt.

Those themes took a heavy toll on Europe's bourses. In turn, the EuroStoxx 50 fell nearly 3%. The euro was also implicated; it tumbled to a 1% loss against the greenback, as of the close of trade.

Diversified bank stocks were some of the hardest hit issues in both Europe and at home. Their weight and their weakness left the overall financial sector to fall almost 5%.

Pfizer (PFE 19.33, +0.07) was the only Dow component that managed to post a gain. Its strength was owed to a better-than-expected quarterly report. That didn't do anything to inspire buying in the rest of the health care space, though. Health care stocks still suffered a collective loss of 2.0%.

As more participants turned to selling the Volatility Index surged. At session's end it was up 20%, which comes on top of the 10% jump that it made during the prior session.

Treasuries attracted a bevy of buyers amid the market's second straight tumble. That drove the yield on the benchmark 10-year Note below 2.0% after it had been near 2.4% less than one week ago.

Data did nothing to improve the mood of participants. The ISM Manufacturing Index declined to 50.8 in October from 51.6 in the prior month. It had been expected to improve to 52.1.

Construction spending increased by 0.2% in September, but it had been expected to increase by 0.3% after a 1.4% jump the month before.

Data from abroad featured the the United Kingdom third quarter GDP report, which showed a 0.5% increase, and an October PMI reading of 47.4 that followed a reading of 51.1 in the prior month. China posted a PMI of 50.4 for October, but that is down from 51.2 in the prior month.

Trade in commodities was focused around what will happen next in Greece. Late in the session headlines crossed the wires which indicated that a referendum vote was unlikely in Greece. This caused the dollar to give back some of its gains and helped commodities recoup some of their losses. Gold futures ended lower by 0.7% at $1711 per ounce, silver shed 4% to close at $32.97 per ounce.

Crude oil, which settled lower by 1.1% at $92.19 per barrel, rallied heading into the close, recouping around 1.5 points in afternoon trade. Futures finished just shy of overnight highs around $92.50. Natural gas shed 3.7% to close at $3.79 per MMBtu. Forecasts for mild weather across the Midwest and Northeast pressured prices throughout the session.

Advancing Sectors: (None)
Declining Sectors: Telecom -1.6%, Consumer Staples -1.7%, Health Care -2.0%, Utilities -2.0%, Consumer Discretionary -2.2%, Materials -2.6%, Tech -2.8%, Industrials -3.1%, Energy -3.1%, Financials -4.7%DJ30 -297.05 NASDAQ -77.45 NQ100 -2.6% R2K -3.7% SP400 -3.3% SP500 -35.02 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 409/2.29 bln/2158 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 445/1.32 bln/2603