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NEW YORK—U.S. stocks fell amid continued worries about the euro-zone debt crisis and troubling profit reports from a couple of apparel retailers.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 84 points to 12520 as Chevron, General Electric and Exxon Mobil led the blue-chip index lower. The Standard & Poor's 500 index dropped eight points to 1335, hurt by the materials and consumer discretionary sectors. The technology-oriented Nasdaq Composite declined 15 to 2808.
The declines come as the IMF said the European Union needs to devise a whole new "comprehensive plan", including boosting the scale of aid, if it hopes to solve the debt crisis facing Ireland and other countries using the euro.
"Europe is definitely the biggest issue this morning given the Greece situation and the spillover to Portugal, Ireland and Spain," said Ben Halliburton, chief investment officer at Tradition Capital Management. "We're definitely in a situation where the market realizes unless there's a restructuring of Greek debt, we're just pushing the problem down the road."
Friday's declines follow two straight days of gains for the Dow and S&P 500 as the frenzy surrounding LinkedIn's share price on Thursday spurred hopes that future initial public offerings will lure more investors into risky assets. LinkedIn shares, which more than doubled yesterday, were recently up 6.8%.
Trading, which was relatively light on Thursday, is expected to remain below average heading in to the weekend as a lack of U.S. economic data likely won't spur much conviction, but could increase volatility.
In corporate news, shares of Gap sank 17% after the largest apparel retailer by sales warned that raw-materials costs are rising faster than expected—and faster than it can raise prices—creating a squeeze that will eat into the company's profit this year.
In addition, Aeropostale's fiscal first-quarter profit dropped 64% on weak growth in sales and margins. The teen apparel retailer also issued an earnings forecast for the current quarter that fell well below analysts' expectations. Shares fell 19%.
"We're definitely seeing some of the price pressures coming through the system and they're proving to be very difficult to handle for companies that have big raw material costs," Mr. Halliburton said.
Meanwhile, John Malone's Liberty Media proposed to buy Barnes & Noble for $1.02 billion, a dramatic turn for the nation's largest bookstore chain—which put itself up for sale last summer but struggled to find a buyer as the outlook for traditional booksellers soured. Shares soared 29%.
Fortune Brands agreed to sell its golf business to a group led by Fila Korea and Korean private-equity firm Mirae Asset Private Equity for $1.23 billion as the conglomerate proceeds with the split of its businesses. Shares of Fortune Brands fell 0.8%.
Crude-oil futures fell below $98 a barrel, while gold futures edged up close to $1496 an ounce. The U.S. dollar edged higher against the euro and the yen.
Write to Steven Russolillo at
steven.russolillo@dowjones.com