Stocks extended their August slide yesterday on news of eroding confidence among US consumers.

"Clearly, it is the consumer confidence numbers that have shaken up the market," said William Rutherford, president and chief executive of Oregon-based Rutherford Investment Management. "The market is quite aware that the consumer is what's holding things up right now and if consumer confidence gets shaken then consumer spending may slow and that's another big negative for the market."

The selling began half an hour into the trading day, when the Conference Board said consumer confidence in August fell to its lowest level in four months with the slack job market weighing on consumers and threatening to crimp retail spending, one of the few pockets of strength in a sluggish economy.

The Board said its monthly index of consumer confidence fell for a second straight month to 114.3 in August, its lowest since April, from a downwardly-revised 116.3 in July.