Housing Data Hem In Stocks

During the holiday-shortened week, the Dow declined by 0.6%, and the S&P 500 ended down 0.4%. The Nasdaq slid 0.7%.

Financials were again in the spotlight, this time after a report in The Wall Street Journal that several lenders were contemplating selling assets. Among them, both Citigroup (C Quote) and HSBC (HBC Quote) could sell anything from branches to auto-financing units, the report said.

Elsewhere, billionaire investor Warren Buffett's investment vehicle Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A Quote) was in the news again after saying it will acquire a reinsurer from Dutch finance company ING (ING Quote) for more than $400 million.

Additionally, Berkshire said it will start its own bond insurer for cities, states and counties, according to the Journal. That sent shares of current bond insurer MBIA (MBI Quote) sliding 15.9% and competitor Ambac Financial (ABK Quote) lost 13.8%.

Both items come three short days after Berkshire said it purchased a 60% stake in Marmon Holdings, a privately held industrial conglomerate, for $4.5 billion. Shares of Berkshire rose 2.4% for the session.

Last time out, it was financials that led the market to the downside. Worse-than-expected economic data and the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto also contributed to the negative sentiment.

At the end of Thursday's session, the Dow was down 192.08 points, or 1.42%, to 13,359.61, while the S&P 500 lost 21.39 points, or 1.43%, to 1476.27. The Nasdaq was off 47.62 points, or 1.75%, at 2676.79.