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All three U.S. stock indexes closed down roughly 1% Monday. Investors sold out of stocks on worries over the political and economic stability of the eurozone and the safety of the U.S. banking sector.

Over the weekend, Greece’s political crisis appeared to worsen as parties fought to form a government. The lack of resolution heightened fears that Greece could be forced to leave the eurozone.

"Everyone is trying to figure out how much of the possibility of Greece leaving the eurozone is being factored into the market," said Frank Davis, head of trading at LEK Securities.

The Dow Jones industrial average () closed down 125 points, or 1%. The S&P 500 () lost 15 points, or 1.1%. The Nasdaq () fell 31 points or 1.1%.

Meanwhile, JPMorgan’s announcement last week of a $2 billion trading loss continues to drag down bank stocks.

Bears are roaring back

Shares of JPMorgan (, Fortune 500), which were down 9% Friday, lost another 3% Monday, after the bank announced the retirement of chief investment officer Ina Drew, who oversaw the unit responsible for the trading blunder. Fitch Ratings downgraded JPMorgan’s debt after Friday’s closing bell, voicing concern over a "lack of liquidity."

Stocks of rival Wall Street firms Citigroup (, Fortune 500), Wells Fargo (, Fortune 500) and Goldman Sachs (, Fortune 500) all slid roughly 2% Monday, following 4% losses Friday. Morgan Stanley (, Fortune 500) dropped by more than 4%.

"If [JPMorgan CEO Jamie] Dimon is making these mistakes and known as one of the best managers out there, it really makes people wonder again who is controlling the risk situation at the banks," said Douglas DePietro, head of trading at Evercore.

As Greece’s problems heat up, investors made a dash out of European debt securities Monday, with the yield on 10-year Greek bonds shooting up to 27.3%.

The yield on the Spanish 10-year bond climbed to 6.33%. Any rate above the 6% benchmark heightens bailout risk. Italian bond yields also rose, hitting 5.75%.

Meanwhile, the German bund slipped to a record low of 1.45%, further raising the spread between Germany and the weaker nations’ yields.

Investors will keep tabs on Germany after German Prime Minister Angela Merkel’s party lost elections in the nation’s largest state on Sunday. Merkel is due to face national elections next year.

U.S. stocks finished lower Friday and were down for the second straight week.

World markets: Major European stocks closed sharply lower. Britain’s FTSE 100 () lost 2%, while the DAX () in Germany tumbled 1.9%, and France’s CAC 40 () plunged 2.3%.

The Shanghai Composite () lost 0.6% in trading Monday, while Hang Seng () in Hong Kong ended down 1.2%. But the Nikkei () in Tokyo finished up 0 short term personal loan.2% for the day.

The People’s Bank of China took action Saturday to stimulate slowing growth, as it cut the amount of reserves banks are required to hold. The move came a day after economic readings showed inflation, industrial production growth, spending and lending in the world’s second-largest economy all slowing.

Companies: Yahoo (, Fortune 500) CEO Scott Thompson left the company Sunday, after it was found he padded his resume with an embellished college degree, ending his term there after just four months.

The web-portal company also reached a deal with activist shareholder and Third Point CEO Dan Loeb, who had initially disclosed the problems with Thompson’s resume, by agreeing to nominate three of four directors he had put forth for its board.

Beauty company Avon Products (, Fortune 500) said that it would consider the most recent buyout offer from Coty Inc., which upped its offer last week. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (, Fortune 500) is helping to finance the bid and said it would back the purchase.

Shares of online deal site Groupon () rose nearly 11% in after-hours trading, following its release of first-quarter results, which showed narrowing losses and better-than-expected sales. In recent months, Groupon has seen accounting problems, shareholder lawsuits and an examination by the Securities and Exchange Commission, but shares moved up 19% Monday ahead of earnings.

Wall Street betting as big as ever

Shares of Chesapeake Energy (, Fortune 500) rebounded Monday from their Friday sell-off, which was sparked by news that Chesapeake might have to delay some asset sales, which are necessary to pay down its debt.

After Friday’s close, the company announced it had arranged for a $3 billion unsecured loan from Goldman Sachs (, Fortune 500) and affiliates of Jefferies Group (). On Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that activist investor Carl Icahn is expected to reveal he has increased his stake in the company to more than 5%.

Shares of Best Buy (, Fortune 500) rose after the retailer said former Chief Executive Brian Dunn’s relationship with an employee was inappropriate but didn’t involve "misuse of company resources" or "misuse of aircraft."

Currencies and commodities: The dollar was stronger against the euro, but fell versus the Japanese yen and the British pound.

Oil prices for June delivery slid to a five-month low, losing $1.96 to $94.17 a barrel.

Gold futures for June delivery lost another $26.30 and reached $1,557.70 an ounce.

Bonds: The price on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury rose, pushing the yield down to 1.78%. 

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The head of Greece’s second-placed Radical Left Coalition has written to top European officials urging them to re-examine the country’s strict austerity program.

In a letter Thursday, Alexis Tsipras said the strong anti-austerity vote in Sunday’s election, which produced a hung parliament, stripped Greece’s bailout commitments of “political legitimacy.”

Tsipras says the punishing cutbacks have failed to address the country’s problems, are destroying the recession-bound economy and threatening to create a Greek “humanitarian crisis.”

He urged top EU officials to “re-examine the entire framework of the current strategy.”

The letter was addressed to European Union President Herman Van Rompuy, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

ATHENS, Greece (AP) _ Greek power-sharing talks entered a third and final round Thursday, as parties in the crisis-hit country struggled to hammer out a coalition deal after general elections produced no outright winner.

The mandate to seek coalition partners passed to Socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos, whose traditionally dominant PASOK party was hammered in Sunday’s poll, pushed into third place with just 13.2 percent of the vote.

He is the third party leader to try to find an agreement. Antonis Samaras, whose conservative New Democracy won the most votes, and runner-up Alexis Tsipras, who heads the Radical Left Coalition, or Syriza, have already tried and failed.

A major stumbling block has been Tsipras’ insistence that Greece’s tough austerity program, which is part of its international bailout commitments, be canceled or frozen. Both Samaras and Venizelos argue such a move would be catastrophic for the country, and would lead Greece out of the euro.

Venizelos has three days in which to seek some form of agreement, although since all the party leaders have already met during the previous two rounds, that looks unlikely.

“Things are not easy,” he said. “I am not declaring myself optimistic. But I am declaring myself responsible, and dedicated to this aim that I believe serves the national interest.”

If his efforts fail, President Karolos Papoulias will convene all the leaders in a last-ditch attempt to cobble together a coalition. If that is also unsuccessful, new elections will be called for early June, prolonging the political uncertainty.

Speaking earlier in parliament, Venizelos said he believed an agreement was possible.

“If the parties show a minimum level of responsibility, we believe this parliament can produce a government that is viable, responsible and one that can do something better for this country,” he said.

Venizelos, however, sharply criticized a proposal by Syriza to impose a moratorium on debt payments.

“This would lead the country to formal bankruptcy, cutting it off the international banking system, and world markets, halting imports and exports and lines of credit to businesses. Greece would become Albania of the 1960s.”

Markets, in the doldrums since Greece’s election stalemate, partially rebounded Thursday, with shares on the Athens Stock Exchange up 2.15 percent at 628.64 in early afternoon trading.

But new unemployment figures released Thursday showed the jobless rate reaching 21.7 percent in February, after more than 900 people lost their jobs every day on average in the prior 12 months.

In return for billions of euros in rescue loans from other European Union countries and the International Monetary Fund, Greece imposed harsh austerity measures that saw salaries and pensions slashed, tens of thousands of people lose their jobs and businesses close down.

Anger at the past two years of austerity and the deep financial crisis saw voters desert the formerly dominant two main parties and flock to smaller parties on the right and left. Syriza saw a strong boost, bringing the party into second place with 16.8 percent.

“The people have punished PASOK, because they considered it responsible for the crisis,” Venizelos said.

But, Venizelos said the election result was a clear message that the Greek people rejected the dominance of any one party.

“It is clear from the result that the people want a coalition government, handing no clear mandate to any single party,” Venizelos told his party’s deputies. “The Greek people want to remain in the euro.”

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The Toronto stock market is negative after elections in France and Greece over the weekend resulted in another round of uncertainty about Europe

The price of oil plunged to its lowest level in nearly six months Friday, falling below $100 per barrel for the first time since February. A drop in gasoline prices can’t be far behind.

It’s a welcome trend for motorists, with the summer driving season just around the corner. And it eases some pressure on the U.S. economy, which has shown only agonizingly slow growth in the nearly three years since the Great Recession ended.

Oil fell $4.05, or 4 percent, to $98.49, after a weak U.S. jobs report offered the latest evidence that the global economy is weakening, possibly reducing demand for oil. At the same time, there is mounting evidence that world oil supplies are growing.

For the week, oil fell more than $6 and is now about $12 below its February high. U.S. gasoline prices have fallen to $3.80 per gallon from a peak of $3.94 in early April.

Now they could go as low as $3.50 per gallon by July 4, according to Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service.

The picture of the oil market is the reverse of just a few months ago. Then, world oil demand looked to be rising quickly at the same time that world supplies were threatened by a host of small production outages and the potential for drastically reduced production from Iran, the world’s third-biggest exporter.

Those developments raised the prospect that world supplies would be at their most tenuous just as the summer driving season arrived in the developed world. The price of U.S. benchmark oil rose to about $110. The price for international oil used to make most of the gasoline in the U.S. spiked even higher, to $128 per barrel.

Gasoline prices in the U.S. appeared to be on track to soar past $4 per gallon nationwide, another burden for U.S. consumers already suffering from high unemployment and pitiful wage growth.

Now the worst of those price fears have melted away for a number of reasons:

• Falling demand: A spreading recession in Europe and slow growth in the U.S. suggests energy consumption, which fell 0.4 percent worldwide in the first quarter, will remain weak.

• Growing supplies: Saudi Arabia and other OPEC members are pumping more oil. Energy companies are employing cutting-edge drilling technology to ramp up production across the globe. World oil supplies grew on average by 1.35 million barrels per day in the first quarter, and producers should easily meet demand in the coming months.

• Easing political tensions: The West’s nuclear standoff with Iran appears to be cooling off. The threat of conflict — and less Iranian crude on the market — helped push oil prices past $100. But now Iran and the West are planning talks.

The price of oil hasn’t dropped this much since Dec. 14, 2011, when it fell by $5.19, or 5.2 percent, to $94.95 per barrel.

Oil prices may drift even lower in coming weeks.

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Technology consulting firm Perficient Inc. reported a 67 percent jump in profits in the first quarter. The company, based in Town and Country, reported a profit of $3 million, or 10 cents per share, compared with $1.8 million, or 6 cents per share, in the corresponding period of 2011 totally free credit score. The company reported quarterly revenue of $74.7 million, compared with $56.2 million last year.

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The number of people seeking U.S. unemployment benefits remained stuck near a three-month high last week, a sign that job gains will likely remain modest.

The report disappointed economists, who had forecast a decline in unemployment applications. Even so, most analysts think employers will add about 175,000 jobs this month. That would be more than in March but less than the robust job growth achieved during the winter.

Last week, applications for unemployment aid dipped to a seasonally adjusted 388,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. That was little changed from the previous week’s figure, the highest since Jan. 7.

The four-week average, a less volatile figure, rose to 381,750, also the highest in three months. When applications fall below 375,000, it generally suggests that hiring will be strong enough to lower the unemployment rate.

The figures “aren’t bad; they’re just not as good as they have been,” said Jonathan Basile, an economist at Credit Suisse.

Applications jumped sharply three weeks ago, a sign that employers had stepped up layoffs and added fewer jobs. Economists said the increase might have been inflated by temporary layoffs during the spring holidays, when many school employees are laid off.

But applications haven’t dropped back since then. And the consensus estimate that the economy will have added about 175,000 jobs in April is well below the average of 250,000 jobs added each month from December through February guaranteed fast personal loans.

The rise in applications follows a report this month that hiring slowed in March, when employers added only 120,000 jobs.

Still, many economists suggested that weather distorted the March jobs report. A warmer winter likely pulled some hiring that normally would have occurred last month into January and February.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke agreed Wednesday that weather has likely disrupted recent data.

The warm winter “made perhaps January and February artificially strong and March perhaps artificially a little bit weak,” he said at a news conference. “I wouldn’t draw too much conclusion from the March report.”

Despite the slowing improvements, the job market appears healthier than it did last year. The unemployment rate has fallen to 8.2 percent from 9.1 percent in August.

Part of the drop came from the fact that people gave up looking for work. People who are out of work but not looking for jobs aren’t counted among the unemployed.

Economists note that unemployment benefit applications remain lower than they were last year. The government’s report next week on April employment should help clarify the jobs picture.

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Well, it’s over. Mitt Romney has amassed a nearly-insurmountable delegate lead, and is on track to become his party’s nominee for president.

The road to victory hasn’t been easy for the former Massachusetts governor. The primary campaign stretched on for months, and at least 10 different candidates topped the national polls at some point.

So how much did victory cost?

Romney spent a total of $76.6 million, far more than any other campaign. That total is, for example, more than the combined spending of Ron Paul, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich.

Now, money isn’t everything in politics — but it sure doesn’t hurt. And in this field, Romney dominated.

"The Romney team was putting a lot of money out there," one Santorum adviser told CNN when the former Pennsylvania senator called it quits earlier this month. "The budget was a factor."

More money, more votes: The billion dollar campaign

At the end of March, the Romney camp had captured 607 delegates and 4.1 million votes. That means the candidate, who has cultivated a reputation as a penny-pincher, spent $18.50 per vote, and $126,000 per delegate.

The money was used to cover various expenses like hotels, food, equipment, accounting services, rental cars, air travel, event consultants and online advertisers.

For instance, in March, the campaign spent $871 on Poland Spring water, $1,966 on office supplies from Apple (, Fortune 500), more than $50 at Applebee’s, $48 at Arby’s, $9.57 at Panda Express, $11,000 in payments to the Waldorf Astoria hotel and $70,165 at law and lobbying firm Patton Boggs.

But at least two of Romney’s contenders had a better votes-to-expenditure ratio.

America’s Choice 2012

Gingrich, for example, spent $21 million through the end of March, collecting 141 delegates and 2.2 million votes. That works out to just under $10 per vote and around $150,000 per delegate.

Santorum spent $18.7 million on 264 delegates and 2.9 million votes for a per-vote expenditure just north of $6.50 and a cost-per-delegate of about $71,000.

Paul, meanwhile, got the worst return on his money of the final contenders. The Texas congressman spent nearly $35 million, but received only around 1.1 million votes and 72 delegates. The math works out to $32.40 per vote and roughly $485,500 per delegate.

And that’s just the official campaign spending. This cycle, the influence of super PACs should not be ignored. While technically prohibited from coordinating with campaigns, the new spending vehicles acted as a supplement, and in some cases, became campaign linchpins.

When super PAC money is factored in, overall spending on Romney’s behalf jumps to $122 million, bringing his cost-per-vote to just under $30. By this measure, each delegate cost more than $200,000.

Gingrich also saw a significant jump when super PAC money is included. Adding in the $18 million spent by the Winning our Future super PAC, the former House speaker’s cost-per-vote jumps to over $17.75, while spending per delegate tops $275,000.

The Santorum super PAC added around $8 million in spending. That pushed him to almost $9.50 per vote and $101,500 per delegate. Less reliant on super PAC spending, Paul’s figures were little changed.

Moving ahead, Romney faces the challenge of ramping up fundraising efforts, while investing a healthy percentage of that money in the kind of ground game that will be able to get out the vote in November.

One candidate has a jump on Romney in that category: President Obama. The Obama re-election campaign has brought in $191 million, and already spent just less than half — or $89 million — of that total. 

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