U.S. stocks fell on Thursday, led by sell-offs among technology stocks after Cisco reported a disappointing revenue outlook for its 2011 fiscal year.
Major indexes were well off session lows at the close, but still mired in negative territory. Falling shares outnumbered gaining ones two to one on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 950 million shares.
As of the market close, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 73.94, or 0.65 percent, to 11,283.10. The Standard & Poor's 500 index dropped 5.17 points, or 0.42 percent, to 1,213.54 and the Nasdaq declined 23.26 points, or 0.90 percent, to 2,555.52.
The market opened with steep losses on Thursday after Cisco Systems, the world's top manufacturer of network routers and switches, issued a disappointing revenue forecast for the year of 2011, underscoring the risks that a weak economy posed to corporate profits. Its share slumped more than 16 percent, making the tech-heavy Nasdaq much weaker than other major indexes throughout the day.
With no major economic data released on Thursday due to the Veterans' Day holiday, investors were focusing the G20 summit in Seoul, capital of South Korea to see if world leaders could come up with plans to help the weak global economy.
However, most analysts were pessimistic about the outcome of the meeting, as the European sovereign debt crisis and currency tensions once again move to center stage. The euro fell against the dollar as concern grew regarding the ability of fiscally weaker euro-zone countries to handle their debt. Meanwhile, the costs to insure against default on government debt issued by Portugal, Ireland and Spain all hit record highs. There are mounting speculations that the debt problems in Ireland have been out of control and the government will have to ask for international aid, just like Greece did early this year.
In commodities, gold futures edged higher while crude-oil futures settled flat after earlier hitting a 25-month high.
