After moving sharply lower at the start of trading on Tuesday, stocks have staged a substantial recovery attempt over the course of the session. The Dow briefly turned positive in recent trading after falling more than 150 points earlier in the day.
Despite the recovery attempt by the broader markets, substantial weakness remains visible among gold stocks. The weakness in the gold sector is reflected by the 2.7 percent loss being posted by the NYSE Arca Gold Bugs Index.
The losses by gold stocks come amid a decrease by the price of the precious metal, with gold for August delivery sliding $9.90 to $1,376.10 an ounce.
Steel stocks also continued to see considerable weakness, resulting in a 1.6 percent drop by the NYSE Arca Steel Index. Earlier in the session, the index hit its worst intraday level in almost four years.
Housing, natural gas, and semiconductor stocks also continue to see some weakness in mid-day trading, although most of the major sectors have climbed well off their worst levels.
Currently, the major averages are all in negative territory but posting relatively modest losses. The Dow is down 13.28 points or 0.1 percent at 15,225.31, the Nasdaq is down 12.97 points or 0.4 percent at 3,460.79 and the S&P 500 is down 4.77 points or 0.3 percent at 1,638.04.
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