Dow falls 131 as stocks sag on jobs news

Updated: 8:05 p.m. ET

Stocks suffered their worst losses in about a month as the big miss on Friday's jobs report made investors wonder if the 2012 rally is done.

The Dow Jones industrials ($INDU) and the Standard & Poor's 500 Index ($INX) closed lower for the fourth straight day. Also weighing on U.S. stocks was weakness in markets across Asia after China reported more consumer inflation than expected. European markets were closed for the Easter holiday.

The sell-off came despite AOL's (AOL) sale of more than 800 patents to Microsoft (MSFT) for some $1.06 billion. AOL shares jumped $7.98 to $26.40. Microsoft, the publisher of MSN Money, was off 42 cents to $31.10 after falling to as low as $30.97.

The market opened the week awaiting the start of earnings season, which begins unofficially with Alcoa's (AA) first-quarter report after Tuesday's close. The week's big reports: Google (GOOG) after Thursday's close and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Wells Fargo (WFC) before Friday's open.

The Dow was down 131 points to 12,930, its worst one-day loss since March 6 and the blue chips' first close below 13,000 since March 12. The S&P 500 finished off 16 points to 1,382, and the Nasdaq Composite Index ($COMPX) had dropped 33 points to 3,047 -- its third loss in four days.

Article continues below.
The Nasdaq-100 Index ($NDX), which tracks the largest Nasdaq stocks, fell 23 points to 2,740. Apple (AAPL) hit another intraday high at $639.84, but the shares fell back to $636.23, a gain of $2.55 and a new closing high.

The finish was, at least, an improvement on the late morning, when the Dow was down as many as 156 points. Bargain-hunting trimmed the loss to about 86 points at about 2:50 p.m. ET before a second, smaller wave of selling hit again.

And futures trading suggests the market will open higher on Tuesday.

Financial, industrial and materials stocks were the market's weakest sectors because the jobs report undercut the idea of strong domestic growth ahead.

The jobs report hit most commodities. Crude oil (-CL) in New York was off 85 cents to $102.46 a barrel after falling to as low as $101.81. Brent crude was down 71 cents to $122.72 a barrel.

The retail price of gasoline nationally was at $3.927, down from Sunday's $3.929 and its third loss since hitting $3.936 on Thursday and Friday, according to AAA's Daily Fuel Gtauge

Natural gas was up 1.8 cents to $2.107 per million British thermal units. It's down 29% this year, weighed down by the mild winter and a supply glut from the development of new domestic supplies.

Silver (-SI) settled down 20.6 cents to $31.52 an ounce, and copper (-HG) dropped 7.8 cents to $3.72 a pound.

The outlier was gold (-GC), which settled at $1,643.90 an ounce, up $13.80.

The 10-year Treasury yield was down to 2.037% from Friday's 2.061%. The yield had been as low as 2.019%.

Energy prices -- New York close
			Mon.			Thur.			Month chg.			YTD chg.
Crude oil (-CL)			$102.46			$103.31			-0.54%			3.67%
(per barrel)
Heating oil (-HO)			$3.1459			$3.1692			-0.76%			7.95%
(per gallon)
Natural gas (-NG)			$2.1070			$2.0890			-0.89%			-29.51%
(per mil. BTU)
Unleaded gasoline (-RB)			$3.2967			$3.3405			-0.34%			24.06%
(per gallon)
Brent crude			$122.72			$123.43			-0.13%			14.29%
(per barrel)
Retail gasoline			$3.9270			$3.9290			0.05%			19.87%
(per gallon; AAA)
Most U.S. markets were closed Friday for Good Friday except bond and equity futures markets.

April brings a lot of weakness
The selling has injected a new sense of volatility into the market.  Not to mention losses: The Dow is off 2.1% for the month, with the S&P 500 off 1.9% and the Nasdaq 1.4%.  Like the Dow, the S&P 500 was off for the fourth straight day, and the Nasdaq is off for the third time in four days.

The Dow suffered its second loss of 100 points or more in three days.

All of this selling is the result of Friday's jobs report, which saw payroll employment grow 120,000 in March, much less than the expected gain of around 205,000 jobs. The unemployment rate fell to 8.2% from February's 8.3%, but that appeared to be because fewer people were looking for jobs.

The report cast immediate doubt on whether the economy was growing as quickly as it seemed to be in December, January and February. The feeling -- at least for today -- is that the January and February strength was due to a very mild winter.

Revisions to the report, which will come with the April and May jobs reports, may change the market's perception of what really happened. For now, what happened was, well, lousy.

At the same time, the jobs report raises the potential (but only that) that the Federal Reserve will start another round of quantitative easing. Many Fed watchers believe, however, that the Fed wants more economic data before making a decision.

Alcoa shares dip ahead of earnings
Alcoa shares were off 3 cents to $9.60. The aluminum giant starts the earnings season off after Tuesday's close.

The report is likely to be downbeat. The company is expected to report a loss of 5 cents a share, down from 28 cents a share a year ago. Revenue of $5.74 billion would be off 3.6% from a year ago.

That would be its second straight quarterly loss as the company faces a tough environment of weak aluminum prices and uncertain demand outlook, which has forced Alcoa to reduce alumina output.

Why AOL is selling its patents
AOL is not only selling more than 800 patents and related applications to Microsoft, but also a nonexclusive license to its remaining patent portfolio.

The news sent AOL shares surging as the online media company said it intends to return a "significant portion" of the sale proceeds to shareholders. The deal comes six weeks after activist shareholder Starboard Value, which is mounting a proxy contest for seats on AOL's board, highlighted AOL's patent portfolio as an "underutilized" asset and complained that the company wasn't acting to realize value from the patents.

At the time, AOL said it had already hired advisers to realize the value of the patents. 

AOL hasn't said exactly what the patents cover, but the company noted that its remaining patents and patent applications include advertising, search, content generation, social networking and mapping technology.

The race for patents has heated up in the tech space. Among other recent deals, Google agreed to acquire Motorola Mobility Holdings (MMI) last year for about $12.5 billion, partly to secure its lucrative patent portfolio, and a number of bidders pursued Nortel Networks' patents at auction as well.

AOL has struggled to revive revenue growth after separating from Time Warner, as the company competes for advertising dollars with Google and Facebook. AOL’s sales declined in each quarter last year, according to Reuters, and the consensus is that revenue will drop an additional 4% to $2.11 billion.

At the same time, corporations have been selling what they consider to be non-core assets. AT&T (T) said today it's selling a majority stake in its Yellow Pages directory division to Cerberus Capital Management for about $950 million as part of an effort to dispose of units that are holding back revenue growth.

Facebook buys Instagram
Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook made a bold play for photo-sharing supremacy today, shelling out a reported $1 billion to acquire the popular mobile-photo application, Instagram.

Nearly two years old, Instagram offers a free photo sharing application across the Apple platforms and platforms built on Google's Android operating system. The app lets a user take a picture and share it over multiple social networks.

The deal is expected to boost the market's interest in Facebook when it goes public next month.

Sony will cut 10,000 jobs
Sony (SNE) is cutting 10,000 jobs, or roughly 6% of its global work force. The layoffs will come by the end of 2012, Japanese newspaper Nikkei reported Monday. Sony's new CEO, Kazuo Hirai, will hold a briefing Thursday. Sony has posted four straight years of losses, hurt by weakness at its LCD television unit. U.S. depositary units were up 9 cents to $20.10.

Yahoo's (YHOO) head of products, Blake Irving, is leaving the company after an announcement that the Internet company plans to slash 2,000 jobs. Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson will hold a meeting Tuesday to brief employees on the company's new management structure, a source told Reuters. Shares were up 4 cents to $15.10.

Great Wolf Resorts (WOLF) received a sweetened takeover bid of $7 a share in cash from KSL Capital Partners. Shares rose 86 cents to $7.44, a signal investors expect more bidding for Great Wolf, an operator of indoor water parks. Great Wolf had rejected an earlier bid of $6.25 a share from KSL, a private investment firm. KSL's latest bid tops an agreed-upon bid from Apollo Global Management (APO) of $6.75 a share. Great Wolf said Sunday it would evaluate the KSL bid.

ClickSoftware Technologies (CKSW) fell $1.97 to $10.56. The maker of software to schedule deliveries and maintenance online said it had revenue of about $21.6 million in the first quarter, missing the average analyst estimate of $23.4 million.

Leaders and laggards
Only 28 of the 30 Dow stocks were higher -- McDonald's (MCD) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), up 26 cents to $98.88 and 3 cents to $23.14, respectively. The laggards were Bank of America (BAC), down 30 cents to $8.93, and Walt Disney (DIS) down 97 cents to $42.11.

Just 27 S&P 500 stocks were higher, led by D.R. Horton (DHI), up 65 cents to $14.70; Supervalu (SVU) up 19 cents to $5.32; and eBay (EBAY), up 68 cents to $36.30. The laggards were St. Jude Medical (STJ) and Genworth Financial (GNW), down $2.06 to $38.91 and 36 cents to $7.69, respectively.

Thirteen Nasdaq-100 stocks were higher, led by gold-miner Randgold Resources (GOLD), up $7.46 to $88.90, and disc-drive maker Seagate Technology (STX), up 79 cents to $26.51.
The laggards were Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX), down $1.94, to $38.11, and solar-panel-manufact​urerFirst Solar (FSLR), down 79 cents to $20.19.

Short hits from the markets -- New York close
			Mon.			Wed.			Month chg.			YTD chg.
Treasury yields
13-week Treasury bill			0.0800%			0.070%			14.29%			700.00%
5-year Treasury note			0.902%			1.006%			-13.52%			8.67%
10-year Treasury note			2.037%			2.061%			-8.08%			8.87%
30-year Treasury bond			3.184%			3.322%			-4.81%			10.21%
Currencies
U.S. Dollar Index			79.919			80.085			0.99%			-0.75%
British pound			1.5868			1.5901			-0.89%			2.13%
(in U.S. $)
U.S. $ in pounds			£0.630			£0.629			0.90%			-2.08%
Euro in dollars			$1.31			$1.31			-2.08%			0.85%
(in U.S. $)
U.S. $ in euros			€ 0.765			€ 0.763			2.12%			-0.84%
U.S. $ in yen			81.57			81.55			-1.71%			5.79%
U.S. $ in Chinese			6.33			6.30			0.18%			0.09%
yuan
Canada dollar			$1.002			$1.003			-0.04%			2.12%
(in U.S. $)
U.S. dollar			$0.999			$0.997			0.05%			-2.08%
(in Canadian $)
Commodities
Gold (-GC)			$1,643.90			$1,630.10			-1.67%			4.92%
(per troy ounce)
Copper (-HG)			$3.720			$3.796			-2.75%			8.27%
(per pound)
Silver (-SI)			$31.5240			$31.7300			-2.96%			12.93%
(per troy ounce)
Wheat (-ZW)			$6.4300			$6.3850			-2.69%			-1.49%
(per bushel)
Corn (-ZC)			$6.4900			$6.583			0.78%			0.39%
(per bushel)
Cotton			$0.8930			0.8839			-4.92%			-2.60%
(per pound)
Coffee			$1.8055			1.855			-2.41%			-21.38%
(per pound)
Crude oil (-CL)			$102.46			$103.31			-0.54%			3.67%
(per barrel)
Most U.S. markets were closed Friday for Good Friday except bond and equity futures markets.