Stocks fell on Wall Street Friday after House Republicans called off a vote on tax rates and left federal budget talks in disarray 10 days before sweeping tax increases and government spending cuts take effect.
The Dow Jones industrial average was down 106 points at 13,206 after the first hour of trading.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index was down 12 points at 1,431. The Nasdaq composite index fell 32 to 3,018. All three indexes are still positive for the week.
The House bill would have raised taxes on Americans making at least $1 million per year and locked in decade-old tax cuts for Americans making less. Taxes will rise for almost all Americans on Jan. 1 unless Congress acts.
House Speaker John Boehner had presented what he called "Plan B" while he negotiated with the White House on avoiding the sweeping tax increases and spending cuts, a combination known as the "fiscal cliff."
But Boehner scrapped a vote on the bill Thursday night after it became clear that it did not have enough support in the Republican-led House to secure passage. He called on the White House and the Democratic-led Senate to work something out.
The market opened sharply lower, then recovered some ground in mid-morning trading after Boehner told reporters that he was still open to talks with President Obama to get a deal done. The Dow had been down as much as 154 shortly after the opening bell. Before the market opened, stock index futures suggested that the Dow could lose as much as 200 points when trading opened.
"It's all `fiscal cliff' related," Sal Arnuk, a partner at Themis Trading. Arnuk said the initial sharp drop in the market might have been an overreaction. "It's not a surprise that they weren't able to come to an agreement. I don't think most of Wall Street anticipated that they would come to an agreement."
Technology stocks were among the hardest hit in early trading. Tech stocks in the S&P 500 were down 0.9 percent as a group. Apple, the most valuable company in the country, fell $4.27 to $517.46.
It was not the first time that Wall Street worried about the "fiscal cliff" talks.
On the day after the election, when voters returned divided government to power, the Dow dropped 312 points. On Nov. 14, when President Barack Obama insisted on higher tax rates for the wealthy, the Dow dropped 185 points.
Stocks closed sharply lower Friday in Asia after House Republicans canceled their vote. The Nikkei index in Japan fell almost 1 percent, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index dropped 0.7 percent. Stocks were also lower in Europe.
In the bond market, the yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note fell 0.06 percentage point to 1.74 percent, an indication that investors were moving money out of stocks and into ultra-safe government bonds.
The price of oil fell $2.02, or 2.2 percent, to $88.12 per barrel.
Among stocks making big moves:
— Walgreen slumped 98 cents to $36.57 after the nation's largest drugstore chain filled fewer prescriptions and absorbed costs tied to acquisitions and Superstorm Sandy. The results were worse than financial analysts had been expecting.
— Blackberry maker Research in Motion dropped 15 percent, or $2.14, to $11.81 after the company said it won't generate as much revenue from telecommunications carriers once it releases the new BlackBerry 10.
— Nike jumped $5.32 to $104.32 after the world's largest athletic gear maker said strong demand in North America led to a 7 percent increase in revenue in the three months ended Nov. 30, balancing out economic weakness in Europe and a slowdown in growth in China.
— Micron Technology dropped 8 percent, the biggest decline in the S&P 500 index. The semiconductor maker reported a loss late Thursday as weaker demand for personal computers and an oversupply of certain chips hurt its sales. The stock was off 55 cents at $6.24.
Stocks fall sharply after Republicans cancel vote
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Stocks fall sharply after Republicans cancel vote
