US STOCKS-Wall St falls on euro-zone worry, tech slide

                                

                                
 * Euro-zone fiscal problems spur some risk aversion
                                
 * Apple and Microsoft lead tech sector's decline
                                
 * Dow off 0.5 pct, S&P off 1 pct; Nasdaq off 1.5 pct
                                
 * For up-to-the-minute market news, click [STXNEWS/US]
 (Updates to close)
                                
 By Chuck Mikolajczak
                                
 NEW YORK, Jan 29 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks dropped on Friday,
as worries about fiscal turmoil in Europe and a drop in
technology stocks pushed the S&P 500 to its worst monthly
decline since February 2009.
                                
 Uncertainty about the fiscal stability of Greece, Portugal
and Spain caused U.S. investors to pull back from early gains,
even as Greek and European Union officials said there was no
chance of a Greek default or EU bailout. For details, see
[ID:nLDE60S0XN]
                                
 "Sovereign debt issues continue to weigh on the market,"
said Robert Francello, head of equity trading for Apex Capital
in San Francisco.
                                
 "The pattern has been to sell into the weekend, wait for
sovereign risk and sovereign default news in Europe, and if it
doesn't happen, the relief rally begins."
                                
 Major indexes initially rose more than 1 percent after a
host of reports showed the U.S. economy grew at a much
stronger-than-expected pace during the fourth quarter and
pointed to continued improvement in the first quarter.
 [ID:nN28246399]
                                
 But the broader market lost ground by midday as investors
sold off shares of such technology bellwethers as Apple Inc
<AAPL.O>, Microsoft Corp <MSFT.O> and International Business
Machines Corp <IBM.N>.
                                
 The PHLX Semiconductor index <.SOXX> dropped 3.4 percent,
weighed down by a soft profit forecast from flash memory maker
SanDisk Corp <SNDK.O>, which tumbled 11.7 percent to $25.42.
[ID:nN28107322]
                                
 The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> dropped 53.13
points, or 0.52 percent, to 10,067.33. The Standard & Poor's
500 Index <.SPX> lost 10.66 points, or 0.98 percent, to
1,073.87. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.IXIC> fell 31.65 points,
or 1.45 percent, to 2,147.35.
                                
 The recent sell-off has seen the S&P 500 tumble 6.7 percent
in the last eight trading sessions.
                                
 For the week, the Dow lost 1.1 percent, the S&P 500 fell
1.7 percent and the Nasdaq lost 2.6 percent.
                                
 For January, the Dow slid 3.5 percent, the S&P 500 shed 3.7
percent and the Nasdaq tumbled 5.4 percent.
                                
 Shares of Apple lost 3.6 percent to $192.12 and ranked as
the heaviest weight on the Nasdaq, while Microsoft's stock fell
3.4 percent to $28.18. IBM slipped 1.1 percent to $122.39.
                                
 Big manufacturers, including Boeing Co <BA.N>, as well as
the energy and materials sectors fell, weighing on both the Dow
and the S&P 500 after Honeywell <HON.N> set a first-quarter
profit target that fell short of analysts' expectations.
[ID:nN29134579]
                                
 Boeing shed  3.1 percent to $60.60 while Honeywell lost 3
percent to $38.64.
                                
 Volume was light on the New York Stock Exchange, with about
1.58 billion shares changing hands, below last year's estimated
daily average of 2.18 billion. On the Nasdaq, about 3.1 billion
shares traded, well above last year's daily average of 1.63
billion.
                                
 Declining stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by
a ratio of more than 2 to 1, while on the Nasdaq, about two
stocks fell for every one that rose.
 (Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal)