Oil, GM Wallop Stocks

UBS finished down 2.6% at $19.83, and Deutsche Bank was up 2.4% to $85.64 following news it would buy segments of ABN Amro's commercial banking business in the Netherlands.

JPMorgan Chase (JPM Quote) and Lehman Brothers (LEH Quote) led among the sector's gainers. JPMorgan was up 1.7% at $34.60 and Lehman tacked on 6.7% at $22.36.

A Robert W. Baird upgrade to outperform from neutral for Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB Quote) sent the stock up 5.5%, but it gave back much of those gains, closing up 0.4% at $10.65. On the other hand, RBC cut its price targets for Wells Fargo (WFC Quote) and Bank of America (BAC Quote). Both were weaker.

Merrill Lynch (MER Quote) lost its footing after Oppenheimer forecast $5.8 billion in writedowns for the firm. It ended down 3.4% at $31.15. Oppenheimer also cut its second-quarter earnings estimates for Citigroup (C Quote), saying the company stands to lose $1.25 a share, vs. a prior estimates for a per-share profit of 25 cents. Shares shed 1.7% to $16.84.

"People should refrain from taking too much away from today's markets," said Charles Rotblut of Zacks Investment Research. Investors are headed into a holiday and waiting for Thursday's unemployment report, he said. "I think the action this week really lacks a lot of conviction overall. Particularly in the selling, we haven't seen fear set in." Earnings reports, which start next week, could do more to impact the market, he said.

Several consumer-dependent companies offered updates to their turnaround strategies. Latte maker Starbucks (SBUX Quote) announced late Tuesday that it would be closing 600 of its U.S. stores, effectively ending an era of rapid growth for the company. It will also probably cut several thousand jobs. Shares were up slightly.