Stocks Sunk by Underwhelming Earnings, Data, Europe Worries

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The major U.S. averages endured an ugly session Tuesday with sentiment soured by a batch of tepid business and economic reports from around the globe, disappointing corporate results and ongoing eurozone concerns.

The risk-off action pushed the yield on the 10-year Treasury bond to a new historic lows under 1.4%. Stocks found some buyers just ahead of the closing bell though, allowing the major U.S. equity indices to bounce off their worst levels of the day.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 104 points, or 0.82%, to close at 12,617. The session low was 12,522. It was the third consecutive triple-digit decline for the blue-chip index, which is still up 3.27% so far in 2012.

The S&P 500 lost more than 12 points, or 0.90%, to finish at 1338. It's also down three days in a row.

The Nasdaq suffered the biggest percentage decline, dropping 27 points, or 0.94%, to settle at 2863. A nearly 6% decline in Cisco(CSCO) pressured the tech-heavy index.

The capital goods, energy and transportation sectors saw the deepest selling.

Within the Dow, 26 of 30 components finished lower. Aside from Cisco, the biggest blue-chip losers were AT&T(T) , DuPont(DD) ,Hewlett-Packard(HPQ) and United Technologies(UTX) .

AT&T shares fell 2.1% after the telecommunications giant reported quarterly profit that beat estimates but revenue that was slightly below expectations.

DuPont reported a decline in second-quarter earnings on weak volumes. Adjusted earnings were $1.48 a share on revenue of $11 billion, versus the average analysts expectation of earnings of $1.46 a share on revenue of $11.25 billion. Shares lost 2%.

AT&T and DuPont's reports were among the many companies posting bottom line beats but top line misses this earnings season. Overall, Thomson Reuters has a blended year-over-year earnings growth estimate of 5.9% from the S&P 500 for the second quarter, down from 8.1% in the first quarter.