No safe place for bulls to hide today

Small-cap stocks extended the morning slide into midday trading, as pressure from a weak economy continues to take a toll on commodity, retail and financial stocks, overshadowing even aggressive rate cuts out of Europe overnight. At 12:04 p.m. ET, the Russell 2000 (NYSE:IWM) was down 10.28, or 2%, at 504.36.

There really was no safe place to park money today, with equities taking a big hit, Treasury products lower and even commodities in negative territory. The Brazilian president said that the worst of the global financial crisis has now passed, but the market didn’t seem to heed his remarks, with the Brazilian stock market sinking some 3.5% into their afternoon trading time frame. Brazil is a major commodities exporter, and has taken an extra hit as commodity prices collapsed along with stocks in recent weeks.

The economic malaise continued to bruise commodity markets, with crude oil prices tumbling toward $60 a barrel, or the lowest prices since March. The IMF said that developed economies were on track for a full-year contraction for the first time since World War II, and energy exporters that depend on demand from big consumers were taking a beating, with the Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund down 5.5%.

Here in the United States a weak tone for the day was forged overnight when tech bellwether Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq:CSCO) beat the earnings forecast for the third quarter but warned that fourth quarter revenue could decline for the first time in years. CSCO was down about 2.2%, but now actually lagging overall declines in the Nasdaq 100 and in the Dow and S&P 500, so clearly there were other problems bigger than just CSCO.

Retailer shares were a mixed bag today as monthly same-store sales results were pouring in. However, the overall read was gloomy, with the S&P Retail Index down about 1.7%. While there were individual bright spots like small-cap firm Hot Topic Inc. (Nasdaq:HOTT), which was up 12% as sales climbed 8.3%, there were also plenty of disappointments such as Ann Taylor Stores Corp. (NYSE:ANN), which tumbled 25% as the women’s apparel specialist said it would slash jobs and cut costs . . .

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