Bulls Fail AGAIN:Here's What You Need To Know

A heartbreaker for the bulls. At one point they had a major reversal and gain on their hands.

But first, the scoreboard:

Dow: +5
S&P 500: +0.40
NASDAQ: -5.94

And now, the key stories of the day:

Following Monday's action in the US, you knew that Japan was going to be ugly, if only because it had to play catch up. But it wasn't just ugly -- it was really ugly, with stocks falling over 3%, bringing down on ongoing nervousness about the ineptitude of the BoJ. That cast a pall over the rest of Asia.

Europe had another unimpressive day. Stocks sagged, Greek CDS spreads continued to widen, and Anglo Irish Bank turned in a really monster loss.

Futures in the US bottomed very early in the morning (right around 3:00 AM) and steadily gained into the opening bell. A decent June Case-Shiller number buoyed stocks. A good consumer confidence index reading also helped, and given all the talk about the double dip, it this was a particularly gratifying reading.

At one point all the markets were up solidly, including the NASDAQ. But as is the case these days, the rally faded. Fed minutes confirmed a divided FOMC (though mostly it was all well within expectations).

In the end, it was a tug-of-war kinda day, but stocks ended lower, with the NASDAQ taking the worst of it.

source:businessinsider