The Nasdaq market slid sharply again with investors growing increasingly cautious about the technology sector.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 24.75 to 5,628.03.
Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a margin of almost 7-to-6 on the New York Stock Exchange, with 1,102 up, 1,273 down and 804 unchanged.
NYSE volume totaled 367.00 million shares vs. 298.33 million in the previous session.
Broader measures also were lower, although not as sharply as the Nasdaq composite index, which dipped below 1,200 for the first time since early May.
The NYSE composite fell 1.34 to 355.58, and the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index dropped 3.10 to 662.06.
The Nasdaq index fell 21.70 to 1,185.93, and the American Stock Exchange's market value index slipped 1.54 to 588.99.
Bonds initially moved higher today after the Commerce Department reported that housing starts fell 4.7 percent to 1.43 million in May after four months of steadily rising mortgage rates. Many analysts had predicted a drop only to the 1.48 million level.
But by midday, bonds started retreating and the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond - a key determinant of corporate and consumer borrowing costs - rose to 7.10 percent, up from Monday's 7.06 percent.