Major Averages Pull Back To New Lows For The Session

(RTTNews) - After initially showing a lack of direction, stocks have come under pressure over the course of the trading day on Thursday. With the pullback on the day, the major averages are moving lower for the third consecutive session.

Railroad stocks continue to see considerable weakness in mid-day trading, with the Dow Jones Railroads Index down by 3.3 percent. With the drop, the index has fallen to its lowest intraday level in over a year.

Union Pacific (UNP) has helped to lead the railroad sector lower falling by 4.5 percent after reporting weaker than expected second quarter revenues.

Substantial weakness has also emerged among gold stocks, as reflected by the 3.1 percent loss being posted by the NYSE Arca Gold Bugs Index. The losses by gold stocks come despite an increase by the price of the precious metal.

Telecom, natural gas, and utilities stocks have also come under considerable selling pressure over the course of the session.

On the other hand, significant strength remains visible among networking, computer hardware, and semiconductor stocks.

The major averages have seen further downside in recent trading, hitting new lows for the session. The Dow is down 102.19 points or 0.6 percent at 17,748.85, the Nasdaq is down 15.19 points or 0.3 percent at 5,156.58 and the S&P 500 is down 11.03 points or 0.5 percent at 2,103.12.