Stocks Dip on Mortgage Fears

The markets dropped today on news that mortgage defaults last month climbed 30% from a year earlier, more evidence that foreclosures are on the rise. Wells Fargo and Washington Mutual tumbled, and the Dow dipped 17.31 to 13,895.63. Stocks bottomed out after a Fed official said players shouldn’t “bake into the cake” future rate cuts, Bloomberg reports.

The Nasdaq declined 8.09 to 2,701.50, and the S&P 500 fell 4.63 to 1,526.75. The two largest Medicare providers fell on expectations that high prices might mean they lose a total of 1 million clients next year. In brighter news, personal spending was up 0.6% in August, leading one manager to say: “I’m still bullish.” (More NASDAQ stories.)