By Ellis Mnyandu
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks tumbled on Tuesday, hurt by a pullback in commodity shares due to concerns that the global economy might be spiraling into recession, dimming the profit outlook.
Shares of energy companies, including Exxon Mobil Corp, off more than 6 percent, weighed on the broader market, along with those of miners and other natural resource companies such as aluminum producer Alcoa, whose stock shed nearly 3 percent.
A profit slide posted by miner Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc was one of the catalysts that sparked selling in commodity shares, a day after their run-up helped propel the market to a higher finish.
Shares of Freeport-McMoRan tumbled nearly 9 percent, while the American Stock Exchange's Gold BUGS index slumped more than 7 percent. U.S. front-month crude dropped $4.20, or nearly 6 percent, to $70.07 a barrel.
"The decline (in stocks) is partly due to the decline in oil and other commodities. We had a rally yesterday on a lift in commodities, so now we're seeing a pullback in commodities and that's correlated with the perceptions of whether there's global growth or not," said Peter Boockvar, equity strategist at Miller Tabak & Co in New York.
The Dow Jones industrial average slid 217.12 points, or 2.34 percent, to 9,048.31. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index tumbled 27.12 points, or 2.75 percent, to 958.28. The Nasdaq Composite Index shed 55.03 points, or 3.11 percent, to 1,715.00.
Freeport, the world's largest publicly traded copper producer, said quarterly profit fell by a third and would curtail planned mine expansions because of weaker metals prices and current economic conditions.
Caterpillar Inc, a maker of excavators and bulldozers, also missed profit expectations, sparking a drop of nearly 5 percent to $38.99 in its stock price.
Tech bellwether Texas Instruments Inc warned of slowing sales for its widely used analog chips, while chemical company DuPont Co cut its full-year forecast.
Texas Instruments slipped nearly 9 percent to $16.44 on the NYSE, as shares of DuPont slid 6.4 percent to $33.83.
The gloomy corporate news underscored the severity of the fallout from the U.S. housing slump and the impact of the prolonged global credit crisis.
Even though signs of a thawing of credit markets again emerged on Tuesday, investors feared the logjam has probably done damage to U.S. and world economic prospects.
On Nasdaq, shares of Apple Inc were a top drag, down nearly 6 percent at $92.98. The maker of the iPod and the iPhone is due to post quarterly results after the market's close on Tuesday.
Bucking the trend, diversified manufacturer 3M Co's shares rose 4.4 percent to $60.02 after posting a stronger-than-expected quarterly profit.
(Editing by James Dalgleish)
