DAILY MARKET ROUNDUP
Stock markets drop to record lows for year

By Lisa Singhania
Associated Press

NEW YORK — A spate of disappointments in the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors triggered a broad selloff on Wall Street yesterday, sending the Dow Jones industrials, Nasdaq composite and Standard & Poor's 500 indexes to their lowest closes of the year — and near the lows that followed the terrorist attacks.

The late-session drop wiped out what was a respectable rally, the second such pullback in as many days. Analysts said the defeat showed again how risk-averse investors have become — although the corporate news yesterday wasn't particularly bad, investors decided they were better off selling and locking in whatever profits they might have had.

"People are still scared to make a bet on the future at this point," said Rafael Tamargo, director of equity research at Wilmington Trust.

The Dow closed down 128.14, 1.3 percent, at 9,517.26 after rising as much as 113 points. The Nasdaq fell 33.51, 2.2 percent. The S&P lost 17.14, 1.7 percent. The Dow is now 10.5 percent below the 2002 high it reached March 12. The Nasdaq has dropped 27.3 percent and the S&P 13.6 percent from their highs for the year, both on Jan. 4.

Declining issues led advancers 3 to 2 on the New York Stock Exchange. Consolidated volume came to 1.74 billion shares, compared with 1.50 billion Monday.