NEW YORK (Reuters) ? U.S. stocks dropped on Friday, putting the S&P 500 on pace for its first weekly decline in the past six, after another snag in negotiations for a financial bailout package for Greece.
Declines were broad-based, with all 10 S&P sectors negative and the S&P 500 energy, financials and materials sectors all down more than 1 percent each. The CBOE Volatility index (.VIX), often referred to as Wall Street's "fear index," jumped 11 percent, its biggest percentage gain in three months.
Investors have anxiously waited for a bailout package for Greece so the country might avoid a messy default, but various complications have tied up talks for weeks.
An agreement finally came this week, but it was dealt a blow as workers in Greece went on strike to oppose fiscal reform measures requested by the European Union and International Monetary Fund. Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said the nation needs to reach a decision within days on accepting the terms of a bailout.
Some analysts said they saw the day's market move, however, as a just a pause in an overall higher trend.
"Technically, we're firing on all cylinders," said Bruce Zaro, chief technical strategist at Delta Global Asset Management in Boston.
"This market move in the short run is likely to play out to the April-May period. On the S&P, I think odds are extremely high we'll take out the 1,370 high, which we hit in May of 2011, and if the market continues on... it would not surprise me to (see) 1,425 or 1,450 in the first half of this year."
Even with the day's decline, the S&P 500 is up 6.7 percent since the start of the year.
The Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI) was down 113.07 points, or 0.88 percent, at 12,777.39. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index (.SPX) was down 10.41 points, or 0.77 percent, at 1,341.54. The Nasdaq Composite Index (.IXIC) was down 19.37 points, or 0.66 percent, at 2,907.86.
U.S. consumer sentiment data also weighed on the market. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan overall index of consumer sentiment fell to 72.5 in early February from January's 75.0, which was the highest level since February 2011.
The day's declines also put the S&P 500 on track to end a three-day streak of gains.
Zaro said 80 percent of New York Stock Exchange stocks were trading above their 200-day moving average, a sign of overbought conditions.
Shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) slipped 0.6 percent to $37.65.
Among rising stocks, LinkedIn Corp (LNKD.N) gained 16.9 percent to $89.31 after three brokerages raised their price targets on the stock. The professional networking services company reported an upbeat outlook for the first quarter on Thursday.
(Reporting By Caroline Valetkevitch, additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Kenneth Barry)
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