US stocks tumble as NYSE hit by lengthy outage

New York - US stocks slumped on Wednesday on worries about China and Greece in a session that was overshadowed by a lengthy outage at the New York Stock Exchange due to technical problems.

At the closing bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was at 17 518.42, down 258.49 points (1.45%).

The broad-based S&P 500 fell 34.43 (1.65%) to 2 046.91, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index tumbled 87.70 (1.75%) to 4 909.76.

The NYSE was closed for more than three hours due to an "internal technical issue" that it said was not caused by hacking.

"We had the NYSE halted but I don't think this was a factor in this decline," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital. "I think this is due to the acceleration of the turmoil in China."