Since then, however, the stock market has been stumbling along in a trading range, coping with a selloff of technology stocks, persistent questions about high share prices and, recently, a significant slowdown of cash inflows into mutual funds.

These factors, along with concerns about shrinking profit margins and the strong dollar hurting exports, continue to raise questions about the strength of a market that has seen the Dow rise nearly 3,000 points, or 75 percent, since January 1995.

And while the Dow has gone about six years without a 10 percent correction -- the longest such period in history -- it is in the midst of its biggest decline since last summer, down 345 points, or nearly 5 percent, since March 11, when it peaked at 7,085.16. (It is up 4.5 percent for the year.)

Much of the decline has been attributed to worries about higher interest rates in the bond market, which makes bonds more attractive relative to stocks, largely because rising bond yields offer high returns with little or no risk. On Thursday, when the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond rose above 7 percent for the first time in six months, stock prices plunged.

The Dow was down by more than 215 points, or about 3 percent, in late trading Thursday, before recovering some of those losses in the last half-hour, to close down 140.11 points, or 2 percent, to 6,740.59. The Dow has fallen by 3 percent in a session only once in the last five years, and that was March 8, 1996, when it lost 171 points, or 3.04 percent.

New data suggest an accelerating economy. One example is the Government report Friday that sales of new homes surpassed an 800,000 annual pace for the first time in a decade. This raises fears of increased inflation, leading few analysts to see stock prices gaining in the short term. And if the Fed continues to raise interest rates -- it did so last week for the first time since 1995 -- the slump could continue.

''If the Fed tightens again and interest rates keep going up, we're in big trouble,'' said Charles Pradilla, a market strategist at Cowen & Company.