Stocks slump again, worst loss this year

The stock market suffered its worst loss of the year Tuesday because of uncertainty about upcoming corporate earnings reports and concerns that the borrowing costs of Spain are creeping close to a crisis level.

The decline extended the longest and deepest slump of the year for Wall Street to five days. More than half the first-quarter gain of the Dow Jones industrial average has been wiped out, and more than a third for the Standard & Poor's 500.

The Dow fell 213.66 points, its third triple-digit loss in four days, closing at 12,715.93. The Nasdaq composite index ended down 55.86 points, its worst performance this year, at 2,991.22. The S&P 500 index was down 23.61 at 1,358.59.

U.S. Treasury prices rose as investors shifted money into lower-risk investments.

After the market closed, Alcoa reported much better quarterly earnings than expected, providing hope that the losing streak might end.

European markets sold off. The main stock indexes in Spain and France closed down about 3 percent, the equivalent of a 400-point drop in the Dow. The yield on 10-year Spanish bonds rose to almost 6 percent. Seven percent is generally considered the level at which governments can no longer afford to raise money on the international bond markets.