Investors sold market-leading technology shares for the third session in a row, leaving broad indexes sharply lower and the Dow Jones industrials below where they opened the year.

At close of trading, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 158.08, or 1.7 per cent, at 9,133.03. The Dow was down 118 points before recovering most of its losses in early afternoon, but it retreated a second time in the final hour. Investors took profits in technology shares, which had almost single-handedly led the market higher in recent months, and did not replace them with other stocks, traders said.

The Standard and Poor's 500 fell 27.47 to 1,216.30. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index fell 94.06 to 2,310.86. Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 2-to-1 margin on the New York Stock Exchange, with 1,003 up, 2,033 down and 536 unchanged.