Stocks faded in the afternoon on Thursday to end mostly lower, with investors skeptical a key vote by Congress would lead to a deal to avoid a U.S. default.

The S&P 500 fell for a fourth straight day as buyers kept to the sidelines while lawmakers tried to hash out an agreement on the deficit.

The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI ended down 62.44 points, or 0.51 percent, at 12,240.11. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index .SPX was down 4.22 points, or 0.32 percent, at 1,300.67. The Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC finished up 1.46 points, or 0.05 percent, at 2,766.25. (commentary & photo courtesy of Reuters)

During the day the stop loss level on BHH was hit and it was sold. I looked at the trading and the price spiked down the first 30 minutes of the day and that’s what took me out. That is natural market forces. If I was paranoid I would have thought it was market makers picking off my stop. But i have to be a realist. I took the money and reinvested it in yesterday’s RSI pick of EWW. It had a sharp rise today but fell back to almost even by the end of the day.

There were no RSI picks today.