US stocks sink as crunch EU week begins

New York - US stocks tumbled on Monday as Europe's leaders appeared still-divided on how they will address their crisis in the coming crunch summit for the eurozone.

Tech stocks were big losers during the session, with Hewlett-Packard dropping 4.1%, Microsoft 3.0%, Lenovo 6.0% and Dell 2.1%.

At the close the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 138.12 points to 12,502.66 at the close of trade.

The S&P 500 slid 21.30 to 1,313.72, while the tech-rich Nasdaq lost 56.26 to 2,836.16.

The lack of agreement on key steps needed to stem the eurozone crisis ahead of the summit at the end of the week kept a cloud over markets, sending Europe's bourses lower as well.

The problem for the market is that the news reports from Europe "underscore the reality that almost nothing has changed - at least not in a good way anyway as it pertains to the eurozone's debt crisis," said Patrick O'Hare of Briefing.com.