NEW YORK (AP) - U.S. stocks fell broadly on Tuesday as investors found little to cheer in corporate earnings reports. A plunge in Twitter led Internet companies sharply lower.
Twitter dropped 18 percent after company insiders were allowed to sell stock for the first time since the initial public offering last year. Netflix fell 5 percent, Facebook and Amazon, 4 percent each, and Google, 2 percent.
Nine of the ten industry groups in the Standard and Poor's 500 fell, led by a 1.4 percent drop in financial companies after results for insurer American International Group fell short of analysts' expectations. Home builder stocks dropped after more signs of weakness in the housing market.
The S&P 500 dropped 16.94 points, or 0.9 percent, to 1,867.72. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 129.53 points, or 0.8 percent, to 16,401.02. The Nasdaq composite dropped 57.30 points, or 1.4 percent, to 4,080.76.
Even utilities - the biggest winners so far this year, up 12 percent - did not escape the selling. They slipped 0.5 percent.
The drop in the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones index was the third in four trading days, and comes despite recent upbeat news on the U.S. economy. Payrolls increased by 288,000 last month, the fastest pace since 2012.