Loan Loss Worries Sink Markets

April 20, 2009 at 16:38 PM EDT

Concerns about increasing loan loss provisions sent the markets into a tailspin with the Dow collapsing 289 points to close at 7841.  Nasdaq skidded 64 points to 1608.
On the downside
Renewed concerns about credit losses weighed down shares of Fifth Third Bancorp(Nasdaq: FITB), Huntington Bancshares (Nasdaq: HBAN) and Regions Financial (NYSE: RF).
Image Entertainment (Nasdaq: DISK) terminated its merger agreement with Nyx Acquisitions citing Nyx's inability to finance the deal.
Profit takers weighed down shares of DryShips (Nasdaq: DRYS), whose stock price rose on Friday after an analyst upgrade.
Alcoa (NYSE: AA) announced that a two-year contract extension was ratified by union workers at a Cleveland plant.
The University of Georgia will adopt Synovus Financial's (NYSE: SNV) Secure Vault Payments for making online tuition payments. However, the stock price fell along with the rest of the financial services industry.
Shares of Capital One Financial (NYSE: COF) plunged ahead of its earnings release tomorrow. 
In the broad market, declining issues overwhelmed advancers by a margin of nearly 8 to 1 on the NYSE and by more than 9 to 2 on Nasdaq.  The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks skidded 26 points to 452.