Stocks struggled in the red for much of the day as Euro-zone uncertainty lingered like a bad smell.

A verbal joust continued between Greek and German political leaders as the debt-rescue package talks take on increasingly nationalistic undertones.

Issues of sovereignty are coming to the fore.

The FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) minutes pointed to a range of opinions with some still favoring asset purchases in a new Quantitative Easing (QE) type program.

Any new QE program would have negligible impact on the real economy.

The real economy is what needs to be fixed and that can only be achieved through serious fiscal reforms.

It remains doubtful, however, that Congress can get together to pass through meaningful fiscal reform legislation.

In credit land, the tone was weak again with cash bond BWIC (bids wanted in competition) lists continuing to hit the street.

Spreads for bank and financial bonds were particularly weak as investors sold those bonds.

Given how much bank and financial spreads rallied in January, some sort of reversal is not altogether surprising.

Swiss giant UBS is close to launching its first low-trigger CoCo (contingent capital) bond in what will prove to be a litmus test for whether other banks can do the same.

UBS is looking to shore up its capital to meet regulators' demands.

Regulators have made no secret of their fondness for CoCo bonds.

CoCo bonds help lower the cost of capital in the short term by classifying it as debt, but provide a buffer in case of emergencies that can be switched into loss-absorbing equity.

In the case of this UBS deal, no US domiciled investor could buy the bonds so it was marketed mainly to Asian and European investors.

In technology, Google's $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility got the green light from U.S. and European antitrust regulators.

More and more, policy-makers are growing to view technology as a major way out of this economic slump.

Initial jobless claims numbers are out on Thursday.