The American stock markets closed lower today following the news of homes sales dropping a staggering 27%. Stocks of big banks that have large mortgage-finance operations such as Citigroup (C), Bank of America (BAC), Wells Fargo (WFC) and JPMorgan (JPM) closed lower despite doing large amounts of trading volume, according to the New York Stock Exchange: Like the Dow, the Nasdaq Composite Index also fell 1.3% and the S&P500 dropped 1.2%. Economists are also reporting that the downturn in home sales is unlikely to reverse course. Additionally, all the mortgage finance related stocks in the HousingWire Industry Ticker (posted below) fell. Write to Jacob Gaffney. The author holds no relevant investments.