US stocks sink ahead of EU summit

NEW YORK: US stocks tumbled Monday as Europe's leaders appeared still-divided on how they will address their crisis in the coming crunch summit for the eurozone.

At the close the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 138.12 points (1.09 percent) to 12,502.66 at the close of trade.

The SandP 500 slid 21.30 (1.60 per cent) to 1,313.72, while the tech-rich Nasdaq lost 56.26 (1.95 per cent) to 2,836.16.

The lack of agreement ahead of the summit at the end of the week on key steps needed to stem the eurozone crisis kept a cloud over markets, sending Europe's bourses lower as well.

News reports of the continued policy disputes from Europe "underscore the reality that almost nothing has changed -- at least not in a good way anyway as it pertains to the eurozone's debt crisis," said Patrick O'Hare of Briefing.com.

Nerves were not helped by news that the Greek finance minister has been forced to step down amid a health scare and that Cyprus asked for a eurozone bailout.

Meanwhile the markets were unimpressed with the US Census Bureau's data release showing new houses in the US sold at their best pace -- an annualized clip of 369,000 units -- in two years in May.

On the Dow, Wal-Mart was the only gainer, adding 1.3 per cent.

Shares of drugmakers Bristol-Myers Squibb and Pfizer sank after US drug regulators held off approving their new blood thinner Eliquis, asking for more information about the medicine.

Bristol-Myers lost 3.5 percent while Pfizer ended down 1.1 per cent.

Major banks also took hits. Bank of America slid 4.3 per cent, Morgan Stanley 4.7 per cent, and Citigroup 4.4 per cent.

Research in Motion's 7.6 per cent drop on a downgrade from Morgan Stanley led a broad fall in tech stocks; Hewlett-Packard fell 4.1 per cent, Microsoft 3.0 per cent, Lenovo 6.0 per cent and Dell 2.1 per cent. -- AFP