Alcoa (AA), Verizon (VZ), General Electric (GE) Pull Dow Down

Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ), Alcoa (NYSE:AA) and General Electric (NYSE:GE) are weighing on the Dow, as all three in earlier trading were down by over 2 percent or close to it, although they rebounded slightly since them.

Stocks in the U.S. dropped in response to the continuing upward surge in oil futures, along with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke comments.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average wasn't the only index falling, as the Nasdaq and Standard & Poor's 500 were down as well.

Bernanke hinted this phase of quantitative easing may be the last, as he sees economic growth as probably being self-sustaining.

Some see this as a negative, but most should be glad that Bernanke is even thinking about turning off the digital printing presses, as over the long term that is more harmful than the rest.