Stock markets around the world declined -2% or so arguing over which flag to fly. It was a good day for a cash position, or something other than U.S. and International stocks. Below is a table of U.S. stock sectors.

Source: http://www.sectorspdr.com/sectorspdr/tools/sector-tracker

But it wasn’t just U.S. stocks. Equity markets around the globe were down. The graphic below shows much of the world  stock markets down around -4%. Spain and Germany were down the most.

Source: http://www.etf.com

The big news came over the weekend that Greece closed banks to head off chaos as bailout talks break down. Greece owes lenders $242.8 billion Euros in total and $1.7 billion tomorrow. Germany is its largest creditor.

The Greek stock market is closed, but the ETFs are not. The Global X FTSE Greece 20 ETF (GREK) was down nearly -20%. The Global X FTSE Greece 20 ETF tracks the FTSE/ATHEX Custom Capped Index, which is designed to reflect broad based equity market performance in Greece. The index is comprised of the top 20 companies listed on the Athens Exchange by market capitalization.

Much of the world is in great debt…

One day isn’t much of a trend, but -2% days like this are notable, so we’ll see if it is the beginning of a trend. The year-to-date total return (including dividends) is negative for both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the IBoxx $ Invest Grade Corporate Bond ETF.

The stock market is risky and that includes the loss of capital. Past performance does not guarantee future results.