Afternoon Note
It's interesting to note that the banking sector (BKX) is actually higher on a day where the market is making a low volume pullback. On a Friday afternoon with very few traders on the floor, there could be some volatilty into the close.
Closing Wrap
As mentioned earlier, there was indeed volatility into the close. After doing absolutely NOTHING from 10:20am until 3:40pm, the market staged a mini-rally in the last few minutes. In looking at the volume, there were some "buy on the close" orders that more than cut in half the market losses on the day. The telling sign again was that financials were up even as the market was down throughout the day.