Markets Dive at Opening

Wall Street opened trading this morning with a big sell-off spurred by the disappointing April retail numbers and possibly igniting the first big pull-back of the rally that began in early March.

In the first 15 minutes of trading, the Dow is down about 154 points, or nearly 2 percent.

The broader S&P 500 is down 2 percent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq is down about 1.5 percent.

The markets have risen more than 30 percent since hitting their most recent bottom in early March, and skeptical traders have been waiting for the pullback.

Elsewhere this morning, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner just finished speaking to the Independent Community Bankers of America in Washington.

He said the Obama administration wants new regulation for the financial system that will provide "less opportunity for arbitrage," and that will make it "less easy for risk to move around, to migrate around the system."

The White House wants to move with urgency on new regulation, Geithner said.

"We want to move while the memory of the damage of the crisis is still acute," he said.

Also, AIG chief executive Edward Liddy testifies today beginning at 10 a.m. before the House Oversight committee, along with three AIG trustees.

This morning, The Post's David Cho and Brady Dennis reported that federal officials knew about the outrage-inducing AIG bonuses even earlier than had been reported.

-- Frank Ahrens
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