YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: A deluge of data and concern regarding tomorrow's jobs report pushed buyers to the sidelines. That left stocks to drop sharply in broad-based fashion, resulting in the stock market's worst single-session percentage loss since July.

The dour mood among participants was evident from the start. Stocks started in the red as the previous session's lackluster finish carried over into morning trade and foreign markets faltered. News that the International Monetary Fund raised its forecast for 2010 global economic growth to 3.1% from 2.5% had no real positive impact.

Though the IMF forecast was widely disregarded, market participants were focused on several other reports, including another disappointing jobless claims tally. Initial claims climbed 17,000 to 551,000, which is a higher count than had been expected. Continuing claims came in at 6.09 million, which is below the consensus estimate and down 70,000 from the previous week, but that is largely due to the expiration of jobless benefits. The ugly claims numbers and the disappointing ADP report on Wednesday serve as salient reminders that the government's nonfarm payrolls report for September could be disappointing. The official payrolls report is due Friday morning.

Personal income and spending for August were up 0.2% and 1.3%, respectively. Both exceeded expectations, while core personal consumption climbed a mere 0.1%, as expected.

The ISM Manufacturing Index for September came in at 52.6, which is below what was expected, but the figure still indicates growth in the manufacturing sector.

Construction spending during August made a surprise 0.8% increase, while pending home sales for August surprised some by increasing 6.4% in August.

Stocks were also dogged by a stronger U.S. dollar, which was helped partly by supportive comments from Fed Chairman Bernanke, who said that there is no immediate risk to the dollar. With the Dollar Index up nearly 0.7%, basic materials stocks and commodities showed weakness for the entire session. Materials stocks finished 3.9%, while the CRB Commodity Index dropped 1.5%.

Financials were the worst performers for the session, though. The sector dropped 4.4%. Banks were some of the worst performers as regional banks dropped 5.5%, diversified financial services fell 5.2%, and diversified banks dropped 5.1%. Bank of America (BAC 16.21, -0.71) was one of the few companies to make headlines this session. The company's Chief Executive, Ken Lewis, announced that he will retire by year's end. No successor has been named, though.

With 95% of the companies listed in the S&P 500 logging losses, many participants pursued Treasuries. That helped send the benchmark 10-year Note more than one full point higher. In turn, its yield fell to fresh multimonth lows below 3.2%.

Trading volume made a considerable pullback from the previous session, now that quarter-end window dressing and portfolio rebalancing has come to an end. Only 1 billion shares traded hands on the NYSE this session. DJ30 -156.44 NASDAQ -54.41 NQ100 -3.1% R2K -3.4% SP400 -3.1% SP500 -22.21 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 498/2.19 bln/2181 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 533/1.04 bln/2475