Today's Major Market Move: KBW Bank Index Declines 5.9% in Wednesday's Session

The slow moving train wreck that is Europe caused more ripple effects in markets around the world today. Italy's bond market continues to deteriorate with the 10 year yield hitting another all time high. The U.S. market then reacted very pessimistically with the DOW dropping 389 points (3.2%) and the S&P falling 46 points (3.67%). The worst performing of all of the U.S. based indexes (that we track) was the KBW Bank Index, down 5.9%.

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Banks have both indirect (overall macroeconomic) and direct (many of them hold European sovereign debt) exposure to the European crisis. Therefore the bank sector has been one of the more volatile over the past few months and we've previously highlighted a major move in the KBW index on Aug 10.

Here's a list of today's top decliners in the S&P 500:

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Interestingly enough, that list is conspicuously devoid of almost any banks. The only one I see is Regions Financials (who is in the process of trying to sell one of its businesses and has hit a stumbling block). The lack of big decliners means that the sell off was pretty even across the sector.

Here's a chart showing % change over the past year of the big boys:

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