4:30 pm : Stocks managed to slash losses, but still settled in the red following another gain by the greenback and disappointing guidance from Dow component Cisco.

The S&P 500 was down about 1% at its session low and the Nasdaq was off by close to 2% at its worst level of the session. The selloff came as participants responded negatively to another gain by the greenback -- 0.6% this session. The dollar has now advanced in five straight sessions for a cumulative gain of about 3%, which makes for its longest and strongest streak in months.

Support for the dollar has come amid concerns about the debt of such fiscally challenged eurozone countries as Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and Italy. Wider yield spreads on their debt has made for a less than tacit indication of that concern.

Participants were also inclined to sell after Cisco (CSCO 20.52, -3.97) dropped a disappointing outlook on investors. The downside forecast completely overshadowed the firm's better-than-expected earnings results and sent shares of CSCO to their worst single-session percentage drop of the year. Such extreme weakness imbued the rest of the tech sector, which logged a 1.8% loss.

Stocks gradually recovered from their session lows so that broader market losses on the session were less than half of what they had been at the depths of today's trade.

Momentum was lost late in the day, though. Disney (DIS 35.93, -1.06) disrupted some of the action by posting an earnings miss shortly before the close.