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acabou-se o estado de graça?

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By Dan Strumpf
Updated Jan. 13, 2014 5:27 p.m. ET

The Dow industrials suffered their biggest one-day drop since Sept. 20, as last week's disappointing jobs report continued to reverberate and investors questioned whether stocks can sustain last year's rally.

Traders said no single piece of news drove the selloff, which came one session after the weaker-than-expected jobs report clouded the economic outlook. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 179.11 points, or 1.1%, to 16257.94, its fourth straight decline and its lowest finish since Dec. 20.

The Dow industrials fell 179.11 points to their lowest close since Dec. 20. Above, traders on the floor at the NYSE on Monday. Scott Eells/Bloomberg News
Despite the decline, many investors remain optimistic about stocks this year, though they are expressing worries that shares have become overly pricey. They also said further gains will likely be difficult until the economic outlook clears and companies back up their higher share prices with strong earnings.

"The market's extremely jittery right now. There's broad-based expectation for a little bit of a pullback," said David Seaburg, head of equity sales trading at investment bank Cowen.

Tom Carter, managing director at JonesTrading Institutional Services, said the sell orders he received from clients on Monday outnumbered buy orders by three to one. Trading volumes were thin, he said. "Look at the market, people are definitely just taking cash off the table," he said. "I don't think people are as interested in buying at these levels."

In a much-cited report on Monday, Goldman Sachs Group told clients that the S&P 500 was becoming "lofty by almost any measure" and said further growth in valuations would be "difficult to achieve."

Both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite Index suffered their biggest declines since Nov. 7. The S&P 500 fell 23.17 points, or 1.3%, to 1819.20, while the Nasdaq index gave up 61.36 points, or 1.5%, to 4113.30.

As investors shied away from stocks, bonds extended their recent rally. Prices rose as the yield on the 10-year Treasury note slid to 2.827%, its lowest closing level since Dec. 10.

Clients of Los Angeles brokerage Wedbush Securities engaged in "pretty across-the-board" selling of stocks tied to consumers' discretionary spending, spooked by several companies in that sector warning of weaker-than-expected results, said Ian Winer, director of equity trading at the firm. Defensive corners of the market such as health care and utilities held up better, he noted. "People are just a little nervous," Mr. Winer said.

Chris Bertelsen, chief investment officer at Global Financial Private Capital, a Sarasota, Fla., advisory firm that manages about $3.1 billion, is one investor that has been exiting some top-performing stocks since the beginning of the year. He said he has trimmed his position of certain stocks in the consumer-staples sector and raised his cash holdings following last year's strong performance in the broader market.

"It isn't that I think the year is going to be a disaster…we've just taken winners off the table, things where we think the valuations have been stretched," he said. "In the long term, valuations rule."

Other market participants said that Friday's disappointing nonfarm payrolls report continued to weigh on shares. "After Friday's inconceivably hard-to-explain jobs number, the risk to being in [stocks] didn't make as much sense," said Jeff Yu, head of single-stock derivatives trading with UBS. "People are starting to adjust."

A broad range of clients cut exposure to their best performers, Mr. Yu said, as the jobs report left investors with little reason to hold some of their biggest winners from last year.

The economic calendar was light Monday, with investors largely girding for earnings news later in the week, particularly from the financial sector.

Crude oil lost 1% to settle at $91.80 a barrel, while gold rose 0.3% to settle at $1,250.90 a troy ounce. The dollar lost ground against the yen and euro.

European markets were higher, with the Stoxx Europe 600 tacking on 0.2%, following news over the weekend that the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision said it had revised the definition of its leverage ratio in ways that will allow banks to report lower levels of overall risk.

"The decision indicates that regulators are becoming a bit more pragmatic. That's the real positive for investors," said Guy Foster, head of portfolio strategy at Brewin Dolphin, which manages £26 billion ($42.8 billion) of assets.

Germany's DAX index gained 0.4%, France's CAC-40 edged up 0.3% and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 rose 0.3%.

Italy's FTSE MIB advanced 0.7% after Italian industrial production in November rose more than forecast and after Italy secured euro-era record-low funding costs on three-year bonds at an auction Monday.

In Asia, China's Shanghai Composite eased 0.2% to close at a 5½-month low. Japan's stock market was closed for a holiday.

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