By Noel Randewich
(Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell more than 1 percent in afternoon trading on Wednesday due to financial turmoil in China and Greece, while a trading suspension across the New York Stock Exchange entered its fourth hour.
Wall Street deepened its losses after the release of minutes of a June Federal Reserve policy meeting in which officials cited Greece's debt crisis as a serious concern and said they needed to see more signs of a strengthening U.S. economy before raising interest rates.
The NYSE said it planned to fully resume trading at 3:10 p.m. EDT.
A unit of Intercontinental Exchange Inc , NYSE said the halt, which occurred shortly after 11:30 a.m. EDT (1530 GMT), was not the result of a cyberattack. Other exchanges were trading normally.
The exchange does a lot of its business at the close of trading, and if it is still down then, the problems could increase.
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The NYSE halt came shortly after United Airlines was forced to ground flights at all U.S. airports due to computer issues. United Airlines' shares were down 1.9 percent at $53.29.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 270.34 points, or 1.52 percent, to 17,506.57, the S&P 500 lost 35.96 points, or 1.73 percent, to 2,045.38 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 94.71 points, or 1.9 percent, to 4,902.75.
U.S. stocks were in the red even before the halt as the slide in Chinese markets spurred concerns over its impact on global economic growth. All 10 major S&P 500 sectors were lower, with the energy index <>SPNY> down 1.9 percent.
"The China selloff is spooking the markets," said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer of Solaris Group in Bedford Hills, New York. "The selloff continues unabated despite efforts by People's Bank of China to halt this."
Chinese shares have fallen more than 30 percent in the last three weeks, and some investors fear China's turmoil is now a bigger risk than the crisis in Greece.
Fears of a slowdown in China will be a concern for U.S. companies, especially materials and industrial companies, which derive a chunk of their profit from the region.
Alcoa reports results after the close of markets, kicking off the quarterly earnings season. U.S. corporate profits are expected to have fallen 3.1 percent in the second quarter, according to Thomson Reuters estimates data.
Tesla Motors fell 3.7 percent to $257.98 after Pacific Crest downgraded the stock to "sector weight" from "overweight," the second rating cut in two days.
Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by 2,391 to 523, for a 4.57-to-1 ratio on the downside; on the Nasdaq, 2,223 issues fell and 533 advanced for a 4.17-to-1 ratio favouring decliners.
The benchmark S&P 500 index was posting 2 new 52-week highs and 11 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite was recording 23 new highs and 114 new lows.
(Additional reporting by Jonathan Spicer and Sinead Carew in New York, Tanya Agrawal in Bangalore; Editing by Savio D'Souza and Meredith Mazzilli)