Investors Take the Market Down

Stocks finished off the week lower as additional economic data weighed heavily on the session. All three major indices were able to cut some earlier losses, but could not rise above the flat line before the closing bell. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gave up 42.25 to end at 9,665.19. The Nasdaq lost 16.69 points and the Standard and Poor's 500 index shed 6.40 points. Quarterly results from BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd. (RIMM) fell short of expectations and weighed on the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index. The driving force of the market today was definitely the reports on manufacturing and home sales. The Commerce Department said that durable goods orders fell unexpectedly in August, marking the second drop in three months. Meanwhile, it was also reported that home sales inched up to 429,000 last month, which was short of analysts' expectations of an increase to 440,000. In other news, U.S. light crude oil for October delivery fell 19 cents to $65.70 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. COMEX gold for December delivery fell $7.50 to $991.40 an ounce.

Word on the Street

Shares of blackberry smartphone maker Research in Motion Limited (RIMM) took a hit today after the company missed expectations and issued a disappointing outlook. Investors are becoming nervous about RIM as it competes against the likes of Apple Inc.'s (AAPL) iPhone and Google's (GOOG) Android.

The G-20 summit concluded today and some interesting things came out of the meeting. The Group of 20 nations reached a final agreement on regulating banker bonuses . According to a draft summit communiqué, the new rules will be phased in by the end of 2012, by which time world economic recovery should be assured.

Airlines have found another way to nickel and dime consumers. American Airlines (AMR), United Airlines (UAUA), Delta (DAL), and US Airway (LCC) have decided to implement a $10 surcharge for three popular travel dates this winter.

Los Angeles-based homebuilder KB Homes (KBH) reported a smaller quarterly loss as orders rose 62% from the year-earlier quarter and warned that a " meaningful improvement " remains to be seen.

Confidence among US consumers showed significant improvement in late September, reaching the highest level since early 2008. Slowing job losses and optimism surrounding the economic recovery contributed to the positive increase in consumer confidence.

A New Jersey man pleaded guilty on charges that he hid $6.1 million in an offshore UBS (UBS) account from Uncle Sam's attack dogs (aka the Internal Revenue Service). This guilty plea is the latest in a series of prosecutions by the Obama administration to crack down on Americans that have hidden funds overseas.

Taxpayers may soon be bailing out some more banks that were initially deemed too small or too risky to qualify for funds under the TARP program. Federal regulators and lawmakers are currently considering various options including using some of the money that has been paid back to the government as a source of funding.

Apple (AAPL) and AT&T (T) finally gave in to consumers' demands for multimedia messaging , including sending picture and video messages to other phones. iPhones users can check out these instructions to enable the function on your phone.

Once in a while Gmail has a few issues, but the latest rounds of outages have users questioning the reliability of the service.

Is Criticism Of Google's Outages Unfair?

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Honda's (HMC) new mobility device looks like it was made for a clown and not an elderly person.

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Investing gauges are broken, market signals are mixed, and money managers don't know where to turn. What exactly is the new normal ?

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