After week of rallies, stocks close down

The worst quarter for the stock markets since the financial crisis is ending on another down note.

Stocks fell broadly Friday on fresh signs that Europe's debt problems and the U.S. economy continue to languish.

Investors sold stocks across the board. Financial and industrial stocks had the steepest declines. Each of the 10 company groups in the S&P 500 index fell.

The Dow Jones industrial average closed with a loss of 240.6 points, or 2.2 percent, at 10,913.4. The S&P 500 fell 29, or 2.5 percent, to 1,131.4. The Nasdaq composite fell 65.4, or 2.6 percent, to 2,415.4.

The S&P index has lost 14 percent in the third quarter.

Four stocks fell for every one that rose on the New York Stock Exchange. Volume was above average at 4.7 billion shares.

Among the pressures on the market is world economies. Bloomberg News reported Chinese manufacturing shrank a third month, the longest streak since 2009. German sales dropped the most in more than four years, while European inflation unexpectedly quickened to the fastest in almost three years. Japanese industrial production grew less than economists forecast.

Even so, before the close Standard & Poor's 500 pared losses from earlier in the day after the Institute for Supply Management-Chicago Inc.'s business barometer and Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan gauge of consumer confidence beat projections.