Market Wrap-Up

A trading session where fear and ebullience were both splashed with cold reality dropped the Dow Jones Industrial Average 733 points on Wednesday, a 7.9% decline. Most stocks and the majority of exchange-traded funds suffered as earnings season kicked into gear and retail sales data proved discouraging. September retail sales experienced their worst drop in four years, marking the first time those numbers fell for three consecutive months since they started to be tracked in 1992.

Oil prices also sank, falling under $75 a barrel for the first time in a year over mounting investor worries that government rescue efforts on behalf of the world's banks couldn't stave off a recession. Oil closed at $74.50, a 5.3% retreat, and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries again cut its 2009 demand forecast because of the "dramatically worsening" state of the financial markets.

Gold swung wildly through the trading days, closing down slightly at $839 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange, a 50-cent drop. Investor anxiety over the U.S. and European rescue plans pushed futures for December delivery up to $859.20 an ounce, but also drove it down as low as $833.10.

Winners

There weren't many unleveraged ETFs finishing in the black Wednesday. Government bond funds benefited from a flight to quality, with the SPDR Lehman International Treasury Bond ETF (BWX), Vanguard Short-Term Bond Index Fund (BSV), iShares Lehman Intermediate Government/Credit Bond Fund (GVI) and the

SPDR Barclays Capital TIPS (IPE) ETFs getting boosts as jittery investors fled equities.

A speech by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke strove to establish tranquility in the market, but had the opposite effect.

"Stabilization of the financial markets is a critical first step, but even if they stabilize as we hope they will, broader economic recovery will not happen right away," Bernanke said in his prepared remarks. "Economic activity had been decelerating even before the recent intensification of the crisis."

That left gold-based ETFs among the few gainers, including iShares COMEX Gold Trust (IAU), the SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) and PowerShares DB Gold Fund (DGL) .

Losers

Energy funds, both conventional and alternative, took big knocks in anticipation of plummeting demand. The worst-hit names included SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ET (XOP), iShares Dow Jones US Oil & Gas Exploration & Production Index Fund (IEO), PowerShares WilderHill Progressive Energy Portfolio (PUW), Ultra Oil & Gas ProShares (DIG) and iShares S&P Global Clean Energy Index Fund (CLN) .

Thursday's Notebook

Earnings

Advanced Micro Devices, Bank of New York Mellon, Build-A-Bear Workshop, Citigroup, Fairchild Semiconductor, Google, Harley Davidson, International Business Machines, Merrill Lynch, Peabody Energy, Southwest Airlines, Hershey, Winnebago

Economic Data

Initial Jobless Claims for Oct 11 Week (8:30 a.m.)

August Consumer Price Index (8:30 a.m.)

August CPI, Ex-Food & Energy (8:30 a.m.)

August Treasury International Capital Flows: (9 a.m.)

September Industrial Production (9:15 a.m.)

September Capacity Utilization (9:15 a.m.)

October NAHB Housing Market Index (1 p.m.)

Quick Take

A look at how some of the industry's most-popular ETFs did Wednesday.