Stocks fell to fresh session lows in early afternoon trading on Friday after a report that Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport was shut after a man ran from a security checkpoint after being spotted with a gun.
"I heard that supposedly the Atlanta airport was evacuated ... That's probably what it is ... It seemed to coincide with that [pullback]," said Brian Pears, head of equity trading at Victory Capital Management.
The report came from a local Atlanta radio station, which said all flights were temporarily suspended and passengers were evacuated from the airport while security officials searched for the man.
"Beyond that, it was a fairly decent week again, at least in the early part, and now we have a little bit of profit-taking," Pears said.
Earlier stocks were down but off lows in listless trade amid some support from news of more progress in the US-led campaign against the hard-line Islamic Taliban in Afghanistan.
Still, weighing on the market somewhat were new statistics showing US industrial output last month took its biggest dive in nearly 11 years and extended a string of monthly declines that was the longest since the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Federal Reserve said on Friday.
The blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average fell 47 points, or 0.48 percent, at 9,824. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 Index was down 9.13 points, or 0.80 percent, at 1,133.11. The technology-laced NASDAQ Composite Index was off 12.94 points, or 0.68 percent, at 1,887.63.
High-tech giant Dell Computer Corp was in focus and lost more than 4 percent after the No. 1 maker of personal computers said late on Thursday its quarterly net income fell 36 percent as it waged a price war amid dismal corporate demand. It beat analysts' earnings forecasts, but offered what some consider a mixed outlook for the future.
The stock fell US$1.11 to US$26.58. Other computer makers also fell, including Gateway Inc, down US$0.30 at US$8.11, or 3.57 percent.
Xerox Corp, embroiled in a probe by federal regulators and allegations of accounting irregularities, slumped sharply after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday it has reassigned its longtime controller and appointed a new accounting chief. The shares fell US$0.51 to US$6.58, or 7.19 percent.
Financial services companies American Express and Citigroup took a hit after downgrades by Wall Street analysts. American Express fell US$1.22 to US$33.17 after UBS Warburg cut its rating on the company's stock. Citigroup fell US$1.67 to US$48.42 after a downgrade by Prudential.
Raising hopes that the war would end soon, stocks cut losses briefly after the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press news agency said the Taliban have decided to withdraw from their southern stronghold of Kandahar and head for Afghanistan's mountains.
Shortly after the open, stocks briefly trimmed their losses after a US official said US special forces killed one of the leaders of Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network.
The US and its allies are hotly pursuing bin Laden as the key suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
"That's a positive for the market, but we've already built in a lot of good news," said Keith Janecek, a trader for Legg Mason Wood Walker Inc.
"We've been seeing progress being made, we know the Taliban is on the run, and the war is going to end here rather quickly."
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