The US stock market rebound stumbled again, but the selling remained fairly modest despite a flurry of bad news in the computer-chip sector. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 81.87 points to 8,611.41.

Semiconductor stocks led the decline as Merrill Lynch lowered its investment rating on Intel and Texas Instruments. The Standard and Poor's 500 fell 6.46 to 1,091.60, and the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index fell 10.25 to 1,832.44.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a seven-to-four margin on the New York Stock Exchange, with 1,100 up, 1,915 down and 510 unchanged.

NYSE volume totalled 616.03 million shares, against 630.87 million in the previous session. The NYSE composite index fell 3.83 to 546.22, and the American Stock Exchange composite index fell 1.99 to 663.60. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 4.12 to 401.72.