A last-ditch bid to pull the Dow industrials higher failed today, and the blue-chip index in New York ended lower, along with other stock indexes, as technology stocks lost ground.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 27.17 to 9,297.61. The Dow got as high as 9,420.95, up 96 points, then swung as low as 9,295.71, down 29 points. It popped briefly into positive territory in the final hour before descending into the close.

The Standard and Poor's 500 declined 10.64 to 1,225.52 and the Nasdaq composite index lost 36.15 to 2,259.03.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers by 1,564 to 1,415, with 570 unchanged, on the New York Stock Exchange.

Bucking the downward trend, The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 0.04 to 394.43.