Wall Street Tumbles Into Earnings Season

Chevron (CVX Quote), Wal-Mart (WMT Quote) and Intel (INTC Quote) tempered expectations last week, shaking investor confidence. And Alcoa and Boeing (BA Quote) announced they would cut thousands of workers in an effort to better handle the economic downturn.

Shares of Harley Davidson (HOG Quote) tumbled 11.7% to $14.13 Monday after Goldman Sachs downgraded the stock to sell, noting that unprecedented headwinds in global luxury motorcycle demand and credit have yet to be fully realized in the shares.

UBS (UBS Quote) was also in retreat, shedding 3.3% to $14.43 on reports that the bank will announce record full-year losses next month.

Financials led the decliners on the Dow, with Bank of America losing 12% to $11.43 and Citigroup falling 17% to $5.60.

Reports emerged late Friday that Citi was discussing a sale of Smith Barney, its 11,000-adviser financial brokerage, to Morgan Stanley (MS Quote).

Earlier, the bank announced Robert Rubin, senior counsel and a director at the bank, was resigning. The former Treasury Secretary has come under fire over the past two months for his role in encouraging the New York bank's foray into toxic debt.

President-elect Barack Obama last week pledged accountability and transparency in a pitch for his administration's $800 billion economic stimulus plan, dubbed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan. Obama said late Monday that he is also moving forward with efforts to gain approval to allocate the second half of the TARP and has contacted the leadership in the Senate and the House.