Selling Again Hits Most Sectors, but Late Rally Cuts Losses

Updated from 1:31 p.m. EDT

Broad-based selling continued to afflict practically every sector of the market as the weakness in airlines and energy shares spread into defense and basic materials issues, but many groups managed to come off their session lows as a late-day rally swept through the market.

Airlines mostly slid following a brief reprieve Tuesday, but many of the stocks closed above their lows of the day.

AMR

(AMR)

, the parent of

American Airlines

and

TWA

, fell 1% to $19.81, while

Delta Air Lines

(DAL) - Get Report

rose 0.5% to $23.03.

UAL

(UAL) - Get Report

, the holding company for

United Airlines

, dipped 1.8% to $18.65, and

Northwest

(NWAC)

dropped 9.5% to $11.68.

Continental

,

(CAL) - Get Report

, which was in positive territory earlier, was back in negative territory, losing 0.7% to $17.59.

US Airways

(U) - Get Report

also reversed the positive trend, slipping 5.3% to $5.50.

Southwest

(LUV) - Get Report

was up 1.2% to $13.14.

Technology stocks were shaky, but again rebounded from their lows of the session.

Dell

(DELL) - Get Report

, was off 3.7%,

Microsoft

(MSFT) - Get Report

, down 1.2%, and

Oracle

(ORCL) - Get Report

slipped 1.1%.

Cisco

(CSCO) - Get Report

slipped 0.6%, and

Sun Microsystems

(SUNW) - Get Report

dropped 1.4%.

Texas Instruments

(TXN) - Get Report

shed 1.8%, and

Intel

(INTC) - Get Report

lost 5.4%.

Aerospace and defense companies produced mixed results.

Raytheon

(RTN) - Get Report

finished ahead 3.7% to $32.72.

Northrop Grumman

(NOC) - Get Report

rose 1.6% to $96.30.

Lockheed Martin

(LMT) - Get Report

continued to slide, falling 3.3% to $43.14.

Brokerage stocks primarily sold off, but pared their losses by the closing bell.

Morgan Stanley

(MWD)

was unchanged, but

Goldman Sachs

(GS) - Get Report

rose 0.5% to $67.83.

Merrill Lynch

(MER)

was down 2.1%, while

Lehman Brothers

(LEH)

sank 2.6%.

Charles Schwab

(SCH)

dipped 6.9%.

Bank of America

(BAC) - Get Report

was down 0.1%, while

Citigroup

(C) - Get Report

fell 1.6%, and

American Express

(AXP) - Get Report

fell 4.5%.

Insurers were also hurting Wednesday with the group facing up to $30 billion in claims from last week's attacks, according to

Bloomberg

.

ACE

(ACE)

lost 8.2% to $23.87.

American International Group

(AIG) - Get Report

lost 0.5%, while

XL Capital

(XL) - Get Report

dropped 4.7% to $65.37.

Energy companies were broadly lower as the price of oil continued to sink. Oil refiner

Sunoco

(SUN) - Get Report

was off 4.7% to $34.20, while

Royal Dutch Petroleum

(RD)

sank 5.2% to $48.05.

Phillips Petroleum

(P)

slipped 5.1% to $52.84, while

Schlumberger

(SLB) - Get Report

dipped 7.1% to $44.20.

Texaco

(TX) - Get Report

,

Exxon Mobil

(XOM) - Get Report

,

Kerr-McGee

(KMG)

and

Halliburton

(HAL) - Get Report

were also lower.

Basic materials stocks, which were mixed earlier, were down across the board in the afternoon.

DuPont

(DD) - Get Report

and

Westvaco

(W) - Get Report

were in the red. DuPont fell 0.8% to $35.08, while paper products company Westvaco dropped 3.7% to $25.35. Chemical company

Hercules

(HPC)

fell 3.5% to $8.77. Paper products companies such as

Weyerhauser

(WY) - Get Report

,

Williamette Industries

(WLL) - Get Report

were lower, but

Georgia-Pacific

(GP)

inched up. Steelmakers

Nucor

(NUE) - Get Report

and

Allegheny Technologies

(ATI) - Get Report

lost ground.

Retailers were mixed.

Wal-Mart

(WMT) - Get Report

rose 0.5%, and

Kmart

(K) - Get Report

climbed 2.8%.

Home Depot

(HD) - Get Report

lost 3.8%.

Apparel retailer

Gap

(GPS) - Get Report

rose 2.4%, while

Federated Department Stores

(FD)

sank 2.6%, to $28.

Sears

(S) - Get Report

was down 3% to $33.08. Online retailer

Amazon.com

(AMZN) - Get Report

gained 0.3%, and bookseller

Barnes & Noble

(BKS) - Get Report

was up 2.2% to $35.60.

In the consumer products arena,

Procter & Gamble

(PG) - Get Report

rose 0.5%.

Philip Morris

(MO) - Get Report

slipped 0.6%, and

McDonald's

(MCD) - Get Report

gained 1.8%.

Coca-Cola

(KO) - Get Report

tacked on 3 cents to $49.50, and

Gillette

(G) - Get Report

was down 2.1% to $29.96.

Media stocks, which were trending higher in morning activity, were pushed back, but

AOL Time Warner

(AOL)

was up 1.6% to $30.95, while newspaper publishers

Tribune

(TRB)

and

Knight Ridder

(KRI)

were both down slightly.

Gannett Company

(GCI) - Get Report

was off a penny to $60.44.