Financial life in a big town

JetBlue is reviving its unlimited travel deal, which for one month allows travelers to fly anywhere they want, as much as they want.

The offer, which JetBlue (JBLU) originally debuted last year, is on sale through Aug. 20 and is good for travel between Sept. 7 and Oct. 6.

Jet setters can choose between two deals: a $699 package that allows them to travel any day of the week to any of Jet Blue’s 60 domestic and international travel destinations; or a $499 package that excludes travel on Fridays and Sundays.

Jet Blue spokeswoman Allison Croyle said that last year’s program "far exceeded expectations" and was "the most successful promotion in our company’s history." But she would not say how many packages were sold or how much money the airline made because she didn’t want to reveal this information to competitors. She did explain, though, that on the first day of the offer visitors to JetBlue’s route map surged 860%.

"I think it was very successful because it sold out sooner than they expected," George Hobica, air travel expert and president of Airfarewatchdog instant payday loan.com. He added: "The equivalent in advertising value was enormous. It’s a brilliant marketing ploy."

The price of the most expensive option has gone up since last year, when JetBlue offered its seven-day package for $599. Hobica said that it’s a better deal this year, even with the extra $100 charge, because fares are more expensive compared to 2009.

Hobica noted that JetBlue was offering the deal during a "very, very slow period" for travel. He also said the airline was offering the deal one week later than it did last year.

"I wonder if the Steven Slater incident delayed it," said Hobica, referring to the JetBlue steward who cursed out a plane full of passengers, deployed the emergency escape chute, and slid down to the tarmac, beer in hand.

JetBlue spokesman Steve Stampley, however, said the timing for the deal was "driven by the sequence of events in our marketing and activity calendars." 

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The Wauwatosa Plan Commission on Monday deferred until next month a decision on whether to dedicate $12 million to support a new University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus.

City officials are considering paying to build roads and utilities on an undeveloped 88.9-acre site where the UWM Real Estate Foundation Inc. has proposed building Innovation Park, which includes university buildings, private housing and a research park. The city would create a tax incremental financing district to pay for the $12 million in infrastructure construction costs.

The TIF district would let Wauwatosa borrow money for the projects, and then pay off the debt using increased property taxes from new development on the land Same day payday loans.

The Wauwatosa Plan Commission held a public hearing on the proposal on Monday night, but unanimously voted to table the proposal until Sept. 13 to gather more information, said Nancy Welch, Wauwatosa community development director.

If the Plan Commission approves the proposal on Sept. 13, the Wauwatosa Common Council could vote on the plan during its Sept. 21 meeting.

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Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said Thursday that the software giant is urgently working with its partners to unveil a host of tablet computers running Windows 7, to compete with Apple’s fast-selling iPad.

At a meeting with financial analysts on Thursday, Ballmer outlined the company’s strategy to catch up to Apple and Google in the consumer space. He said Apple is doing an "interesting" job with the iPad and has "sold certainly more than I’d like them to sell." As a result, Ballmer said his company’s "job one urgency" is bringing Windows-based tablet computers to the market.

"No one is sleeping at the switch here," Ballmer said. "We have got to make things happen with Windows 7 on slates. We’re in the process of doing that as we speak. As focused as we are on this, our partners are also focused on this to deliver systems and chips to make this happen."

But Ballmer declined to give an exact timeline, saying only that the tablets will be ready "as soon as they’re ready" and "it ain’t a long time from now."

The CEO claimed that Microsoft needs to take its time to get its products just right to compete in the intensely scrutinized tablet space. He said that chipmaker Intel (INTC, Fortune 500) will be coming out next year with a tablet-specific processor called "Oak Trail" that will help manufacturers make better tablets that run Windows 7.

Ballmer famously canned a turmoil-fraught Microsoft tablet project that had been in the works for almost a decade before the iPad came to market. With the early success of Apple’s (AAPL, Fortune 500) iPad, many analysts are predicting that the tablet space will be one of the fastest-growing tech segments this decade, alongside smartphones. That makes Microsoft’s urgency all the more palpable.

Ever confident, Ballmer exclaimed, "We’re gonna sell like crazy!" Still, after the CEO outlined Microsoft’s tablet plans, an analyst told Ballmer that it appeared that Microsoft had "no clear strategy."

Ballmer disagreed, saying Microsoft’s tablets will run Windows 7, they’ll run Intel processors, they’ll be available in a wide array of shapes and sizes across many manufacturers, and they’ll likely be cheaper than the iPad.

Some analysts remained skeptical.

"Microsoft will have to pull a rabbit out of a hat to compete with Apple," said Al Hilwa, applications development software program director at IDC. "Apple has a less-is-more strategy to broaden its consumer approach with the iPad. Microsoft is committed to running Windows 7 on tablets, which is a concern."

Microsoft’s CEO focused his entire presentation on the company’s consumer businesses, which are almost all trailing their competitors.

Bing continues to lose money. "I can’t say there’s a point on the horizon where the business results will flip," Ballmer admitted.

After demonstrating Windows Phone 7, which is set to go on sale in the fall, Ballmer said the company still had a lot of work to do to compete with Apple and Google. Microsoft intends to throw enormous marketing muscle behind the new smartphone operating system, riding the success of its "I’m a PC" campaign with an "I’m a phone too!" campaign.

Xbox is the exception. It’s a consumer product that is finally making money for Microsoft, Ballmer said. The controllerless Kinect accessory will be closely watched when it goes on sale for the holiday season, targeting the Xbox’s 42 million users.

The cloud around businesses

Other top Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) executives mapped out the company’s plans for maintaining its leadership in the corporate market, which makes up three quarters of Microsoft’s business. Microsoft’s lack of success in the consumer world tends to overshadow how well it is doing in the enterprise space.

It also doesn’t help that Microsoft’s primary strategy is relatively unexciting for the majority of non-geeks: The company aims to leverage its broad array of business products, massive data centers and experience in services to take a leadership position in cloud computing.

Still, Microsoft is confident that its success in the future will depend heavily on how well it carries out its cloud strategy with businesses. Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner said the company’s cloud offerings will help fuel physical product sales and noted that 70% of Windows cloud customers are new customers.

Turner lashed out at Microsoft’s competitors like Google (GOOG, Fortune 500), Salesforce.com (CRM), Amazon.com (AMZN, Fortune 500), and VMWare for only offering only partial cloud services and solutions that he described as less than adequate for business customers.

The harshest criticism was reserved for Google’s Web Apps, which compete with Microsoft Office. Turner said Office’s Web Apps are far more powerful than Google’s, calling to attention to small things like Google’s lack of a ruler function on its Docs app — "things that we put in market almost 13, 14 years ago."

He also shared several customers’ complaints about Google’s services and said a handful of companies that left Microsoft for Google are now coming back.

Unlike its competitors, Microsoft can offer companies a full set of cloud-based services, including managed data centers and business software tools in one package, Turner said.

Microsoft’s cash cows also have room to grow. Windows 7 is selling faster than any other Windows version in history, but the vast majority of the company’s customers are still using older versions of Microsoft software. Eighty-four percent of Windows users are running XP and Vista, 52% are using Internet Explorer versions 6 and 7, and 63% are using Microsoft Office 2003 and earlier.

Now that businesses are beginning to refresh their hardware again, Microsoft believes there will be a tremendous upgrade opportunity to Windows 7 and Office 2010. 

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Another Johnson & Johnson manufacturing plant — this one making heartburn and gas relief drugs Pepcid, Imodium and Mylanta — was cited for a pattern of quality lapses similar to those seen at the company’s shuttered Tylenol plant.

Earlier this month, safety inspectors from the Food and Drug Administration issued a "Form 483" to Johnson & Johnson’s Lancaster, Pa., plant.

A Form 483 is issued after an FDA inspection finds problems with a company’s manufacturing practices.

The Lancaster plant is owned by Johnson & Johnson-Merck Consumer Pharmaceuticals, a joint venture of J&J and Merck (MRK, Fortune 500), but is operated by the company’s McNeil division.

McNeil, which makes pain and cold drugs such as Tylenol and Motrin, is under investigation by the FDA and lawmakers in connection with successive recalls of those drugs over the past year. McNeil shut its plant in Fort Washington following a scathing FDA inspection report of the factory in May that cited 20 manufacturing violations.

This latest setback for Johnson & Johnson is raising questions about lax quality standards at its over-the-counter drug factories and the possibilty of a pattern that could result in the FDA hitting the company with another warning letter or tougher oversight at its plants.

Disturbing pattern

The latest inspection report on the Lancaster plant, released by the FDA on Wednesday, cites 12 violations of good manufacturing processes, at least five of which were also observed at the Fort Washington plant.

One expert said the violations observed at the Lancaster plant are "very serious."

"If this is going on in Johnson & Johnson plants that make over-the-counter drugs, is this indicative of what is going on in other parts of the company’s business?" said David Rosen, who worked at the FDA for 14 years. Rosen is now with with law firm Foley & Lardner and advises major pharmanceutical companies on FDA regulations and compliance.

In an conference call with analysts this week, Johnson & Johnson’s chief financial officer Dominic Caruso declined to comment on whether other company plants had received Form 483 reports payday loans.

At both plants, inspectors questioned whether lab procedures and controls were adequate to assure products "conform to appropriate standards of strength, quality and purity."

Both plants were cited for failing to properly review an unexplained manufacturing discrepancy in a batch of drugs and for not properly following up on consumer complaints about products made at the facilities.

Specifically, the FDA’s report on the Lancaster plant noted that the staff failed to follow up on several consumer complaints, including instances where consumers said they found mint-flavored Pepcid tablets mixed inside the same bottle as berry-flavored tablets. There were also multiple complaints about a product lot for "lack of effect."

Experts said "lack of effect" could mean that the product was not producing the desired result when used. The FDA report did not name the product. Also, inspectors said the plant’s complaint coordinator did not initiate an investigation of the product.

However, the report did not mention the possibility or need for a product recall.

Additionally, regulators said the Lancaster factory didn’t properly document equipment malfunctions or keep adequate maintenance records. Inspectors said they found unlabeled test tubes filled with product sitting out on a counter. The factory also didn’t properly clean utensils used in the drug making process.

One industry expert, who did not want to be named, said he would not be surprised if the FDA is pondering further action on the Lancaster plant, such as a warning letter or a consent decree. Under a consent decree, the plant would be able to continue production, but would have constant third-party inspection.

The FDA and Johnson & Johnson declined to comment on the possibility of further enforcement action against the company. 

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Stocks end little changed Thursday, erasing bigger losses after weaker than expected reports on the economy revived worries about growth.

The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) lost a few points and broke its seven-day winning streak. The S&P 500 (SPX) index ended just above breakeven, and the Nasdaq (COMP) composite lost a few points.

Stocks tumbled through most of the session, but managed to cut losses near the close thanks to a late-session advance in financial and commodity shares.

After the close, Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) reported quarterly earnings that missed forecasts on revenue that beat estimates, sending shares lower in after-hours trading.

JPMorgan’s profit report added to bets that quarterly earnings will hold up despite the slower growing economy. But that wasn’t enough to distract investors from a spate of mixed-to-weaker economic reports, particularly in the aftermath of a big rally over the past week.

"We’re coming off a strong rally over the last few days that was earnings driven," said Kim Caughey, senior equity analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group. "Today we took a rest from looking at the earnings and took another look at the economy."

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve lowered its forecast for GDP growth this year. On Thursday, a report showed that weekly jobless claims fell to a two-year low — but continuing claims, a measure of long-term joblessness, rose. Weak reports on manufacturing in the New York and Philadelphia regions added to the jitters.

China also reported strong GDP growth of 10.3% in the second quarter. Still, that fell short of the 11.9% growth recorded in the first quarter.

On Thursday afternoon, the Senate approved the most far-reaching financial reform bill since the 1930s, which President Obama is expected to sign into law next week.

The legislation is designed to limit big banks, protect consumers and prevent the future reoccurrence of financial crises like the one that hit in 2008.

Results: Dow component JPMorgan Chase posted a second-quarter profit of $4.8 billion, or $1.09 per share, trouncing expectations. The bank’s strength in the quarter was due partly to a decline in the number of consumers defaulting on loans. However, JPMorgan’s shares slipped amid the broader market selloff.

"It’s great to have earnings surprises but what we really need to see are companies issuing upbeat forecasts for the second half of the year," she said.

Earnings for the S&P 500 are expected to have risen 28% versus a year ago, according to the latest from earnings tracker Thomson Reuters.

Economy: The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment last week fell to 429,000, the lowest level since August 2008. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com thought claims would drop to 450,000 from a revised 458,000 in the previous week.

However, the drop in weekly claims was largely a result of seasonal factors. Continuing claims, a measure of Americans who have been receiving benefits for a week or more, rose to 4,681,000 from 4,434,000 in the previous week payday loans with no fax. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com thought claims would fall to 4,400,000.

The NY Fed-Empire Manufacturing survey plunged to 5.08 in July from 19.57 in June, surprising economists who were expecting it to dip to 18.

The Philadelphia Fed index fell to 5.1 in July from 8.0 in June, surprising economists who thought that manufacturing activity would rise to 10.0.

The Producer Price Index (PPI), which measures wholesale inflation, fell 0.5% in June after falling 0.3% in May. Economists thought it would fall 0.1%. The so-called core PPI, which strips out volatile food and energy prices, rose 0.1%. Economists expected it to rise 0.1% after it rose 0.2% last month.

Industrial production rose 0.1% in June after rising 1.3% in May. Economists thought it would hold steady. Capacity utilization held steady at 74.1% in June, versus forecasts for a rise to 74.2%.

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve lowered its forecast for GDP this year to a range of between 3% and 3.5% versus the previous forecast of a range of 3.2% to 3.7%.

BP: Shares of the beleaguered oil company rallied 7.5% after BP (BP) said that it has managed to temporarily stop the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, nearly three months after the explosion that caused the leak.

Company news: Private-equity firm Carlyle Group is buying vitamin maker NBTY (NTY) in a $3.8 billion cash deal that values NBTY’s shares at $55 per share, a 47% premium above the stock’s closing price Wednesday. Shares gained 43%.

World markets: European markets fell, with Britain’s FTSE 100 down 0.8%, Germany’s DAX off 1% and France’s CAC 40 down 1.4%.

Asian markets ended lower. Japan’s Nikkei fell 0.1%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 0.2% and the Shanghai Composite fell 1.6%.

Currencies: The euro gained versus the dollar, hitting a two-month high. The dollar fell versus the Japanese yen.

Commodities: U.S. light crude oil for August delivery rose 26 cents to $76.88 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

COMEX gold for August delivery gained $1.20 to $1,209.50 an ounce.

Bonds: Treasury prices rose, lowering the yield on the 10-year note to 2.98% from 3.05% late Wednesday. Debt prices and yields move in opposite directions.

Market breadth: Breadth was negative. On the New York Stock Exchange, losers beat winners by a narrow margin on volume of 1.12 billion shares. On the Nasdaq, decliners beat advancers 2 to 1 on volume of 1.99 billion shares.

How much of a hit did you take in the recent correction? Are you worried about a bear market? What changes have you made in your portfolio and what changes do you plan on making for the rest of the year? E-mail your story to realstories@cnnmoney.com and you could be featured in an upcoming article. For the CNNMoney.com Comment Policy, click here. 

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This year’s week-long Alzheimer’s conference is expected to attract 5,500 international attendees to Hawaii and add $26 million in statewide spending.

The Alzheimer’s Association International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease will be held July 10-15 at the Hawaii Convention Center, resulting in 44,000 booked hotel rooms.

“This is excellent news for Hawaii’s tourism economy and we look forward to providing a world-class venue — conveniently in the Asia Pacific — for professionals to come together to discuss this important work,” said Mike McCartney, Hawaii Tourism Authority president and CEO no teletrack payday loan.

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Suburban Journals publisher Tom Wiley is leaving the company to be publisher of the New Haven Register and senior publisher of the Journal Register Co.’s Connecticut media group.

The Suburban Journals is a subsidiary of Lee Enterprises Inc., based in Davenport, Iowa. Lee also owns the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Wiley was named publisher of the Journals in February, replacing Bob Williams when he became publisher of The Southern Illinoisan in Carbondale, also a Lee subsidiary.

"This is a fantastic opportunity for Tom," said Kevin Mowbray, president and publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "His innovation, energy and creativity have helped us launch new products and improve existing ones."

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The global spotlight is still on the Pittsburgh region, with domestic and international delegations and media visiting regularly to see firsthand Pittsburgh’s transformation and to learn about rebuilding an economy and revitalizing the environment.

The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance have packed their bags – and their instruments – and have crossed the Atlantic, ready to put Pittsburgh on the world stage during the BNY Mellon 2010 European Tour. It’s an ideal time for the PRA to be traveling with the PSO, capitalizing on the global exposure Pittsburgh received during last year’s G-20 Summit and leveraging the orchestra as one of our region’s most acclaimed assets.

It’s also the inaugural leg of a PRA-led Pittsburgh World Tour 2010, a marketing initiative that begins with the PSO in Europe and will extend into the fall in Seoul and Shanghai.

Representatives of the PSO and the PRA, along with regional business leaders, such as BPL Global’s CEO Keith Schaefer, will be creating a conversation about Pittsburgh as a prime business investment destination.

The PRA’s vice president of international business investment, Suzi Pegg, will be traveling with the PSO, leading the PRA’s business investment activities in Basel, Frankfurt, Luxembourg, Paris and Prague. A native of Pittsburgh’s sister city in the U.K., Sheffield, Pegg has called Pittsburgh home since 2000.

Follow her entries from Europe this week on the Pittsburgh Business Times website. Pegg promises to offer perspective on Pittsburgh’s global positioning, post-G-20, as well as some lighter observations about life on the other side of the Atlantic.

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Walt Disney Co.’s profit and revenue surpassed analysts’ expectations Tuesday, as the media giant’s TV networks and movie studios outperformed its theme parks.

Disney’s (DIS, Fortune 500) net income for the three months ended April 3 rose to $953 million, or 48 cents per share, from $613 million, or 33 cents, a year earlier. The prior-year quarter included one-time items that reduced income by 10 cents a share.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters predicted net income of $881.3 million, or 45 cents a share.

Sales rose 6% to $8.58 billion, which was more than the $8.39 billion analysts expected.

"The incredible box office performance of Disney’s Alice in Wonderland and acquisition of Marvel … clearly show the benefits of investing in high-quality branded content" chief executive Robert Iger said in a prepared statement.

Disney’s largest division — TV networks including ESPN and ABC — rebounded 6% thanks to higher fees from cable companies and, to a lesser extent, improving ad sales. Higher broadcast and cable ad sales helped rivals News Corp (NWSA) and Time Warner Inc (TWX, Fortune 500), which reported record quarterly profits, post strong results last week.

Revenue from Disney’s movie studio and theme parks, which account for about half of the company’s total sales, was up 9% from last year.

Alice in Wonderland, which grossed $962 million in global sales since its March 5 release, outshined Confessions of a Shopaholic and Race to Witch Mountain, the company’s two major releases in this quarter last year. The company said Alice is its second highest grossing film of all time in terms of box office sales.

But some analysts foresee a lukewarm response from investors to the quarter’s movie-driven performance.

"The Street usually doesn’t pay up as much for film earnings," said Alan Gould, an analyst at Soleil-Gould Research Corp. "It prefers stronger numbers out of its media networks."

Disney’s theme park and resort revenue were up 2% year-over-year, reflecting the slow return of consumers to vacation spending.

Disney wants to wean guests off the deep discounts it put in place during the recession, CFO Jay Rasulo told analysts during a conference call on Tuesday. He said Disney expects to "take pricing back to normalized levels" as early as fiscal 2011, which begins in October.

During the call, Iger discussed plans for Marvel Entertainment, which Disney bought in August for $4 billion. Investors are eager to see Disney leverage Marvel’s catalog of more than 5,000 characters, including Iron Man, X-Men, and Spiderman.

Disney plans to push Marvel into the video game market, mobile applications, and social networking in the future, Iger said. But he warned that any major push to expand in the short term would be limited by Viacom (VIA), parent of Paramount Pictures, which still owns the distribution rights to Marvel’s next four films.

Iger hinted that Iron Man 2, released May 7, should bode well for third-quarter earnings.

Ahead of its earnings release, Disney’s shares closed down 47 cents at $35.76. Shares slipped 3% further in after-market trading.  

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In one of the most gut-wrenching hours in Wall Street history, the Dow plunged almost 1,000 points Thursday before recovering to close down 348, as erroneous trading in Procter & Gamble and several other stocks sparked a massive selloff.

Fears about the spread of the European debt crisis dragged on stocks through the early afternoon. But the selling picked up in intensity and the Dow reached its nadir at around 2:40 p.m. ET.

The selling was a result of technical glitches that caused some stocks, including Dow component Procter & Gamble (PG, Fortune 500), to plunge 37% to $39.37 per share from the close of $62.12 Wednesday. The consumer products maker recovered most of that loss by the close, ending just 2% lower.

But the faulty P&G trading was responsible for 172 of the 998.50 points that the Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) lost at its worst, the biggest one-day point decline on an intraday basis in Dow Jones history.

Accenture, 3M, Sotheby’s and other stocks may have been impacted by similar problems. (For details,click here)

At the closing bell, the Dow was down 348 points, or 3.2%, to end at 10,520.32. The Dow’s biggest one-day point decline on a closing basis was Sept. 29, 2008, when it fell 777.68, which had also been the previous intraday mark.

The S&P 500 index (SPX) slipped 38 points, or 3.2%. The Nasdaq composite (COMP) dropped 83 points, or 3.4%.

"On the Dow, we were down 400 to 800 points in five minutes, it was horrifying," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Jefferies & Co.

Beyond the erroneous trades, the selling pressure of the last few days has been more technical than fundamental, said Hogan. He said the market collapsed some major technical support levels, and could be in for more selling Friday.

However, there are a few factors that could help stabilize the market Friday, said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Avalon Partners, including news on Greece.

"The key is to get Germany’s vote tomorrow in favor of the Greek aid package from the European Union," he said. "If that happens, that could help calm fears and stabilize the market."

Friday’s big April jobs report could end up being a non-event, said Donald Selkin, chief market strategist at National Securities. "We’ve had good economic reports all week and it hasn’t happened."

The CBOE Volatility (VIX) index, Wall Street’s so-called fear gauge, closed at 34.16, its highest finish since May 4, 2009. Earlier, it had spiked as high as 40.71, a 62% jump and its biggest one-day surge since February 2007.

Selkin said that often when the VIX gets over 40 that can be a sign that the selling has been overdone, which could be good. But with the fear gauge closing below that level, it may not provide a boost Friday.

"International markets are obviously going to get hit over night and futures are pointing to a weak open in the U.S.," Selkin said.

Gold spiked above $1,200, the euro plunged to a more than 1-year low against the dollar and oil prices fell. Treasury prices rallied, sending the corresponding yields lower as investors sought safety in government debt prices.

The run from the euro and into the dollar and U.S. government debt was a classic flight to quality, said Ted Weisberg, NYSE floor trader, Seaport Securities. He said that the continued weakness of the euro was going to be a big drag on the markets as it pummels dollar-traded commodities and also hurts companies that do a lot of business overseas.

After the close, both the Securities and Exhange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said that they would be looking into the unusual trading that took place Thursday.

Movers: All 30 Dow components slid, with oil components Chevron and Exxon Mobil, financial leader JPMorgan Chase, and tech names Hewlett-Packard and IBM among the big losers. 3M, Boeing and United Technologies added to the weakness.

Market breadth was positive no fax pay day loans. On the New York Stock Exchange, winners beat losers 17 to 1 on volume of 2.58 billion shares. On the Nasdaq, advancers topped decliners seven to one on volume of 4.48 billion shares.

European debt problems accelerate: Stocks have been sliding on and off for the last two weeks as investors mull the ramifications of the growing debt crisis in Europe.

While European leaders have pledged to provide Greece with $146 billion in loans over the next three years, attempts by the nation to institute certain "austerity" measures to bring down the deficit have sparked riots and other violent outbursts.

Meanwhile, investors are concerned that the size of the bailout will make Europe less able to help Spain, Portugal and other debt-plagued nations. The so-called PIIGS also include Italy and Ireland.

"There’s no question that Europe and Greece, and specifically the fear of contagion, is what’s driving the market lower," said Hank Smith, chief investment officer at Haverford Investments.

"Having said that, we also have to be cognizant that the market was due for a pullback at a minimum, and possibly a correction," he said.

He noted the market hasn’t had a correction - technically defined as a selloff of 10% on a closing basis - for at least 14 months.

A slew of good - but not great - retail sales reports from the nation’s chain stores, and a report that showed weekly jobless claims dropped were also in focus.

Economy: The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment fell to 444,000 last week from a revised 451,000 the previous week. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com thought claims would fall to 440,000.

Continuing claims, a measure of Americans who have been receiving benefits for a week or more, dropped to 4,594,000 from a revised 4,653,000 in the previous week. Economists expected 4,600,000 continuing claims.

The report was released one day ahead of the government’s closely watched April jobs report, due Friday morning. That report is expected to show employers added 187,000 jobs to their payrolls after adding 162,000 in March, according to economists surveyed by Briefing.com.

The growth is considered a step in the right direction, but the number of new jobs is not yet enough to keep up with the number of new entrants in the labor market.

The unemployment rate, generated by a separate survey, is expected to hold steady at 9.7%.

Corporate news: Troubled mortgage lender Freddie Mac (FRE, Fortune 500) reported an $8 billion quarterly loss Wednesday and also said it needs another $10.6 billion from the federal government. The company was put into conservatorship by the government during the height of the financial crisis in 2008, along with its sister company Fannie Mae (FNM, Fortune 500).

World markets: In overseas trading, European markets tumbled, with France’s CAC 40 down 2.2%, Germany’s DAX down 0.8% and London’s FTSE down 1.5%.

Asian markets fell. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei index lost 3.3% as investors reacted to the European debt crisis after a long holiday. The Hong Kong Hang Seng lost 1% and the Shanghai Composite lost 1%.

The dollar and commodities: The dollar rallied early versus the euro, with the European currency falling to its lowest level since March of 2009. But by late day, the dollar had turned lower. It also fell versus the Japanese yen.

U.S. light crude oil for June delivery dropped $2.86 to settle at $77.11 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

COMEX gold for June delivery rose $22.30 to settle at $1,197.30 per ounce.

Bonds: Treasury prices rallied, lowering the yield on the 10-year note to 3.40% from 3.55% Wednesday. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.

– Staff reporters Hibah Yousuf and Julianne Pepitone contributed to this report. 

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