Stocks slid yesterday as jitters over sagging corporate profits resurfaced and a technical glitch completely shut down trading on the New York Stock Exchange for much of the morning.

The technology-packed Nasdaq market, which continued to trade throughout the morning, led the way down after a weaker revenue forecast from networking company Juniper Networks offset optimism built up by computer-chip giant Intel's benign sales outlook.

Ten of the blue-chip average's issues failed to open in the morning, and a complete average was available only when International Business Machines resumed trading at around 1:40 p.m.

Technical problems plagued the New York Stock Exchange for more than four hours, completely shutting down the world's biggest equity market for much of the morning in a "snafu" that rippled through other US exchanges and sidelined billions of investor dollars.