Stocks tumbled Monday as a six-week old rally lost steam on worries about financial sector earnings, despite Bank of America's better-than-expected quarterly results.

The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) lost 290 points, or 3.6%. It was the biggest one-day selloff on a point basis since March 2nd.

The S&P 500 (SPX) index fell 37 points, or 4.3%. The Nasdaq composite (COMP) lost 65 points, or 3.9%.

Stocks tumbled in the morning and remained in the red through the afternoon as investors bailed out of a variety of sectors after the recent run. All 30 Dow components slipped, led by oil stocks Chevron (CVX, Fortune 500) and Exxon Mobil (XOM, Fortune 500), as well as Hewlett-Packard (HPQ, Fortune 500), 3M (MMM, Fortune 500), Procter & Gamble (PG, Fortune 500) and Wal-Mart Stores (WMT, Fortune 500).

The S&P 500 has advanced almost 29% over the past six weeks on bets that the economy is closer to finding its footing. The gains followed a selloff that left the broad index at a more than 12-year low.

Some better-than-expected profit reports over the last week have helped sentiment. But investors seem to be skeptical of some of the financial sector results, many of which have been soundly beating forecasts, including JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500), Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500) and Citigroup (C, Fortune 500).

"It's always about the financials. They brought us up and they bring us back down," said Joseph Saluzzi, co-head of equity trading at Themis Trading.

"We had a nice run over six weeks, but it was still a bear market rally," he said. "Now today, people are looking at Bank of America and asking how they could have earned what they did and whether it's just a one-time thing."

Source: http://money.cnn.com/2009/04/20/markets/markets_newyork/index.htm?postve...