brian, you were mentioning unicredit.t to mention you brought it up, all the italian banks are weak today and there's a very good reason. the ban on short selling of the italian banks ends tomorrow morning. so these stocks can now again be short -- remember, there's been a ban out there for months. i think that's the reason. there's heavy volume in all of them today in europe. >> thanks, bob. now over to brian quickly. >> bob pisani, thank you very much for that because i did notice it was a big worry. all right. let's talk about the seven-year note auction, right? we had one today. rick, you gave the -- first off, i understand you gave the auction an a plus, but you'll forgive me because i just can't see professor rick santelli giving anything an a plus. >> hey, i call it the way i see it. that was a burn burner auction without a doubt. the old jackie gleeson phrase how sweet it was. if you look at a seven-year intraday note chart you can clearly see a half a dozen basis points vaporize around 1:00 eastern. slipped half

banks thirty four out at thirty seven institutions have been hit including massive banks such as unicredit and internes at sun parlor and it's another blow after the agency cut italy's silver and rating just last month by two notches as part of a mass downgrade of nine euro zone countries standard and poor's explains the move saying with italy's economy heading into recession the banks may become unable to pay all wholesale tax. meanwhile the greek prime minister has vowed to put an end to the country's recession next year if it deal on the next bailout is reached lucas papademos has also threatened to fire any ministers and he's in term of government and we would oppose an agreement and six cabinet members have already resigned over the proposed deal serious doubts over that plan has spread to the streets of athens where police used tear gas at protesters to hold water and molotov cocktails the trouble came as workers staged a two day union strike in response to a fresh batch of belt tightening measures demanded by these you creditors after a tough multi-party deal the greek parliament to

unicredit is down 5%. intesa down about 3.5%. and banca down about 4% on the trading session.ther or not the u.s. market reacts to this. s&p once again downgrading 34 of the 37 italian banks that it rates. we'll watch the markets for you. and mario monti, as you know, as we happen to have him on the 4:00 hour of "closing bell," he'll be speaking exclusively to maria bartiromo. it will be very interesting to get mr. monti's reaction to s&p's move. all right. that's coming up at 4:00 p.m. seema mody is up now. she's joining us from the nasdaq -- or actually the realtime exchange. you're right behind me. >> let's reset the markets. concerns over greece definitely weighing on our u.s. major indices. we have the dow witness triple digit losses. the s&p down 10 points. and the nasdaq down .7%. remember, it's been technology that's been the bright spot for this year and for the year currently down 21 points for the nasdaq. taking a look at our fear index, it's up right now 9.5%. the highest level year-to-date at 20. also seeing money flow out of commodities. take a look at oil tradin