MW: Banks weigh on financials, investors sort data .
By Greg Morcroft, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — U.S. financial stocks tracked the broad market lower on Monday morning after weak data showed a still struggling eurozone and conflicting reports on a single data point in China left some scratching their heads.
The Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF XLF 0.00% [s: xlf], which tracks the financial stocks in the S&P 500 [s: spx] shed 0.4%.
Among the Dow financials, Bank of America Corp. BAC -0.21% .
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. JPM -0.70% , American Express Co. AXP -0.24% and Travelers Cos. Inc TRV -0.36% all fell.
The unemployment rate in the 17-nation euro zone increased to 10.8% in February, on a seasonally-adjusted basis, compared to 10% in February last year, according to Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.
The downturn for manufacturing activity in the 17-nation euro zone worsened in March, according to the final Markit Eurozone Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index.
And In China, different readings between rival Chinese manufacturing surveys for March had analysts searching for answers Monday, with some seeing the incongruous data as related to problems in the survey sample and seasonal adjustments. See full story on China discrepancies
Banks in Europe were also pressured, facing investor displeasure with the shares after the Financial Times reported that several of the banks plan to return a big cut of the bailout money they got from the ECB’s, as early as this year. See FT story.
