YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: Sellers crowded the market to hand stocks their worst loss in four weeks. The broad-based push came despite better-than-expected earnings from bellwethers Intel and JPMorgan.

Semiconductor giant Intel (INTC 20.80, -0.68) announced after the previous session's close better-than-expected earnings of $0.40 per share. It even went on and issued solid revenue guidance for the current quarter. However, participants opted to sell the news of the beat after they had watched the stock climb appreciably in the sessions ahead of its report. The stock is still up roughly 2% since the start of the year.

Meanwhile, banking giant JPMorgan (JPM 43.68, -1.01) was dropped for a loss as participants showed dissatisfaction in the company's need to remain cautious toward consumer credit and persistent loss provisions. The reaction reflects the requirement of participants for higher quality earnings and explicit signs that the economic recovery is for real after watching stocks surge since March.

The latest batch of economic data did little for participants. December's Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 0.1% month-over-month, which is a slightly softer increase than the 0.2% monthly increase that many economists had forecast, but still generally in-line with expectations. Excluding food and energy, the December CPI increased 0.1% month-over-month, as expected.

Industrial production in December increased 0.6%, as expected. Capacity utilization for December came in at 72.0%, which is on par with the 71.8% utilization rate that many had come to expect.

The preliminary January Consumer Sentiment Survey from University of Michigan came in at 72.8, which was slightly below the expected reading of 74.0, and slightly changed from the 72.5 that was posted in the previous month.

Without any data to inspire buyers to keep the stock market's recent uptrend intact, sellers were able to wrest control. Their efforts were broad based, but weakness was particularly noticeable among banks, which shared in JPMorgan's weakness and dropped 2.2%, according to the KBW Bank Index. That loss made financials the worst performing sector of the session -- it shed 2.0% in its worst percentage loss in one month.

Every other major sector also logged a loss; half of the sectors fell by at least 1%.

A stronger dollar, which was helped by continued concern about the financial health of Greece, exacerbated this session's weakness and helped the selling effort spread to commodities. Weakness in the commodities complex dragged the CRB Commodity Index to a 1.1% loss. The slide made for a weak finish to an already-feeble week that saw commodities fall more than 3% since Monday.

Weakness among stocks and commodities helped win support for Treasuries, such that gains in the benchmark 10-year Note trimmed its yield to a three-week low. The 10-year finished with a gain of roughly 15 ticks and a yield of 3.67%.

The expiration of January options drove trading volume on the NYSE above 1.4 billion shares to a near one-month high. However, the expiration of those options distorts conviction in this session's move.

U.S. markets will be closed this coming Monday in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. However, participants will return from the long weekend to a bevy of earnings releases as more than 100 companies are scheduled to report their latest quarterly results next week. A complete calendar of those reports is available at Briefing.com.

Advancing Sectors: (None)
Declining Sectors: Financials (-2.0%), Telecom (-1.4%), Tech (-1.3%), Industrials (-1.2%), Materials (-1.1%), Consumer Discretionary (-0.9%), Energy (-0.8%), Consumer Staples (-0.7%), Utilities (-0.6%), Health Care (-0.4%)DJ30 -100.90 NASDAQ -28.75 SP500 -12.43 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 704/2.68 bln/1996 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 935/1.41 bln/2110