China's Rate Increase Causes Bulls' Trot to Cease

After posting nice gains yesterday amid some clarity regarding the Eurozone's support for Greece, stocks are giving back those gains in late-morning action amid resurfacing economic recovery uncertainty following a surprise rate hike out of China. The global economic uneasiness is teaming up with an unexpected drop in consumer sentiment to overshadow a larger-than expected increase in retail sales for January and Treasuries are higher amid some flight-to-safety buying. In other economic news, business inventories unexpectedly declined. On the equity front, Agilent Technologies topped the Street's profit expectations, while Ingersoll-Rand missed analysts' earnings forecasts. Outside of earnings, Motorola announced that it will split into two separate publically traded companies. Overseas, Asia was higher before China's announcement, and Europe has given up early gains and is lower following the news out of China.