Concerns about sovereign debt in Europe kept a lid on stocks in the United States Monday.

Pressure on the euro weighed on commodity prices, hitting resources stocks.

The Dow Jones industrials, the Standard and Poor's 500, and the Nasdaq slipped, with the Dow surrendering the important 10,000 level. Bulls and bears sparred for most of the day but in the final hour the bears got the upper hand pushing all indices well into the red.

U.S. stocks have generally dropped around 7% in 2010, after having risen around 50% since March last year.

A meeting of G7 finance ministers and central bankers in the Canadian Arctic on the weekend sought to calm markets about the risk of a debt default in the European Union. Data on the economy showed the recovery on track, while broker upgrades inspired some bulls.

"There's a tug-of-war in the markets between the good news of the upgrades and strong earnings, and the bad news of the European debt," John Praveen, chief investment strategist at Prudential International Investments Advisers LLC in Newark, New Jersey told the Reuters newsagency.

"The macro picture for the United States is improving, and if we didn't have the debt issue, the markets would be rallying today on all the good news."

At the close of trading Monday the Dow Jones Industrials were down 103.84 points or 1.04% at 9,908.39.

The Nasdaq Composite was down 15.07 points or 0.70% at 2,126.05.

The Standard and Poor's 500 was down 9.45 points or 0.89% at 1,056.74.

The U.S. dollar remained on the front foot. Around the New York close Monday the euro was quoted at 1.3660.

The Japanese yen was changing hands at 89.32, while sterling was fetching 1.5594.

The Swiss franc was weak at 1.0722, as was the Australian dollar at .8642. The Canadian dollar was last quoted at 1.0742.