War fears depress market

AN Iraq overhang caused investors to push harder on the sell pedal yesterday, driving stocks lower amid broad-based weakness in technology bellwethers and energy and defence names.

Around 1.15 pm ET, the Dow Jones industrial average, down 100.36 to 8436.77, and the Standard & Poor's 500 index, down 11.75 to 882.99, dropped 1.5%. The Nasdaq Composite, down 26.51 to 1332.77, fell more than 2%.

Meanwhile, the market also factored in a significant decline in the dollar. The greenback slipped to a two-month low against the yen and a three-month low against the euro.

With the Fed rate cut last week and most of the third-quarter earnings reports out of the way, and with little economic data scheduled for release this week, analysts said the market could see some deferred profit-taking after the long runup for stocks.

“The market is working off some big moves, a 22% gain in October for the Dow and 27% gain for the Nasdaq,” said Larry Wachtel, market analyst with Prudential Financial.