A mixed economic picture sent stocks tumbling Tuesday, with the Dow Jones industrials falling more than 100 points after investors were unnerved by weakness in consumer confidence and home sales.
Wall Street's slide dragged European markets lower as well in late trading there.
One day after a number of broad U.S. market indexes hit record highs, some investors bailed out amid a weak reading on February consumer confidence and a report showing a decline in sales of previously owned U.S. homes in January.
Those reports overshadowed the government's revised estimate of fourth-quarter economic growth. Real gross domestic product grew at a 1.6% annualized rate, up from the 1.1% the Commerce Department initially estimated.
The Dow index fell 104.14 points, or 0.9%, to 10,993.41.
Among broader indexes, the Standard & Poor's 500 fell 13.46 points, or 1%, to 1,280.66, and the Nasdaq composite lost 25.79 points, or 1.1%, to 2,281.39, hurt by a sharp decline in Google.
The Russell 2,000 index of smaller stocks, which was among the market gauges that hit record highs Monday, dropped 1.4% to 730.64.
Falling stocks outnumbered winners by more than 2 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange and on Nasdaq as trading volume jumped.
Investors' mood about the market has shifted back and forth in recent weeks with economic data.
On Tuesday, "if you were looking for an excuse to sell, you got a few things pushing you towards that," said Kurt Brunner, a money manager at Swarthmore Group in West Chester, Pa. "I'm a little more cautious, a little more nervous."
The weak housing and consumer confidence numbers heightened demand for long-term U.S. Treasury bonds, sending their yields lower. The 10-year T-note yield slipped to 4.55% from 4.59% on Monday.
In other trading, crude oil futures rose 41 cents to $61.41 a barrel in New York trading.
With scant earnings reports and few Federal Reserve speeches, economic data should continue to dominate the week, said Alexander Paris, economist and market analyst for Chicago-based Barrington Research.
One hurdle stock bulls face is "resistance levels." As the Dow and S&P 500 have flirted with 4 1/2 -year highs, those highs have become in effect a ceiling for stock prices, with investors selling off their holdings when the indexes neared those highs.
Stocks ended February mixed. The Dow gained 1.2% and the S&P rose 0.05%, but Nasdaq lost 1.1%.
