Dow falls for 5th straight session on grim data

NEW YORK -- Wall Street pulled back again Tuesday in muted trading ahead of the holiday, as another round of reports showed further deterioration in the housing market and broader economy.

The Dow Jones industrial average finished lower for the fifth straight day, falling 100 points.

Tuesday's gloomy data was hardly surprising to jaded investors. And trading volume has been light this week, which tends to skew the market's movements; many traders are on vacation for Christmas, and the market will close early, at 1 p.m. ET, on Wednesday.

"It is a very quiet news week, and much of it has already been priced into the market," said Ryan Larson, head of equity trading at Voyageur Asset Management.

The reports offered Wall Street no reason to be upbeat, however, and the concern remains that the economy will keep weakening well into the new year. That anxiety is sapping the hope for a year-end rally in the Dow, which is has fallen 36.5% since 2008 began.

The Commerce Department reiterated Tuesday that third-quarter gross domestic product, a measure of the economy that tallies the value of goods and services, fell at an annual rate of 0.5%.

The government also said sales of new homes fell in November to the slowest pace in nearly 18 years, while prices of new homes dropped by the biggest amount in eight months.

Sales of existing homes keep dropping as well. The National Association of Realtors said existing home sales fell 8.6% to an annual rate of 4.49 million in November from a downwardly revised pace of 4.91 million in October. That was more than analysts expected.

The Dow Jones industrial average shed 100.28, or 1.18%, to 8,419.49. The Dow is well off the multiyear lows it tumbled to in mid-November, but it is still down more than 400 points, or 4.6%, so far for the month of December. Typically, December is the one of the best months for the stock market.

Broader indexes also declined on Tuesday. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 8.47, or 0.97%, to 863.16. The Nasdaq composite index fell 10.81, or 0.71%, to 1,521.54. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 6.43, or 1.35%, to 468.64.