4:30 pm : Coming off of the strongest quarterly performance since 2008 and the best first quarter since 1998, stocks scored strong gains on Monday, but things weakened from there.

A better-than-expected ISM Manufacturing Index helped stimulate buying interest at the beginning of the week. The effort gave the broad market a new multi-year closing high.

Sentiment soured on Tuesday as participants responded to some surprisingly hawkish verbiage contained in the minutes from the most recent FOMC meeting. Although the idea that the Fed’s guidance will be conditional on economic developments shouldn’t be surprising, many regarded that view as anti-quantitative easing rhetoric. Selling dropped the stock market to a 1% loss before it began to rebound.

Data on Tuesday was limited to a relatively in-line increase in factory orders of 1.3%.

Selling extended into trade on Wednesday, forcing the S&P 500 to a 1.0% loss for only the second time in 2012. Lingering uncertainty about monetary policy following the FOMC minutes played a part in the downturn, as did renewed concerns about sovereign debt. The latter theme was made clear by the increase in yields on Spain’s debt after the country’s latest debt auction drew underwhelming demand.

Domestic data didn’t do anything to stem losses. The ISM Services Index, which came in at 56.0, declined more than what had been generally expected to follow the 57.3 that had been printed in the prior month.

4:48PM The Ball Aerospace & Technologies Kepler Mission for NASA will continue its mission following a program extension through 2016 (BLL) 43.57 -0.05 : Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. Kepler Mission for NASA will continue its mission following a program extension through 2016. Ball Aerospace is the mission prime contractor for Kepler, designed to search for Earth-size planets around other stars. Ball Aerospace built the photometer and spacecraft, and managed system integration and test for the NASA Ames Research Center and Jet Propulsion Laboratory-led Discovery class mission. Ball is currently managing on-orbit operation of the satellite for NASA Ames.

4:33PM Tellabs and Dialectic Capital reach agreement to appoint Vincent D. Kelly and Gregory J. Rossmann to Tellabs Board of Directors (TLAB) 3.88 -0.02 : Tellabs will appoint Vincent D. Kelly and Gregory J. Rossmann to the Tellabs Board of Directors on May 2, 2012, following its Annual Stockholders Meeting, under an agreement with its stockholder Dialectic Capital Management, LLC. Since 2004, Mr. Kelly has been president, chief executive officer and a director of USA Mobility, Inc. He has over 20 years of experience in the communications industry in various executive roles and brings business management and financial and accounting expertise. Mr. Rossmann is a private investor, a director of several private companies and a director of NETGEAR, Inc., since 2002. He was a Managing Director of The Carlyle Group, and brings strong financial and technical experience from Pequot Capital Management, Inc., Broadview International, Dynatech Corporation and other companies.

4:25PM LAN informs Chilean Supreme Court resolution (LFL) 28.75 -0.28 : Co announces that the Chilean Supreme Court confirmed today the approval granted on September 21, 2011, by the Chilean Antitrust Authority (Tribunal de Defensa de la Libre Competencia (TDLC)) to the merger transaction between LAN and TAM, including the mitigation measures imposed on this transaction. The Supreme Court also rejected LAN's appeal of three of the 14 mitigation measures, which the Company considered to be illegal and unconstitutional. As has been previously announced, LAN and TAM will continue to move forward with the merger within the established timeframes. About LAN