New York » Stocks slid and the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed below 10,000 for the first time since November on Monday amid concern that deteriorating European government finances will derail the economic recovery.

The S&P 500 slipped almost a percent, while the Dow dipped another 100 points, or 1 percent, after big losses last week.

"There's risk aversion," said Michael Holland, who oversees more than $4 billion as chairman of Holland & Co. in New York. "Good economic and corporate data points in the U.S. are being offset by uncertainties in Europe."

Stocks have fallen for four straight weeks, the longest losing streak since July.

Greece's efforts to restore confidence in its finances have only called attention to its woes, and now investors are fretting debt contagion could spread to other countries, starting with similarly troubled Portugal, but with markets wondering who's next.

Some experts believe a bailout could be needed to prevent a continental conflagration -- but European Union leaders resist the idea, while going cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund would be a humiliating step they're unlikely to take.

A growing chorus of voices is predicting a less dramatic, but potentially more corrosive, outcome: a years-long grind of fiscal pain that neither plunges Greece into default nor restores its finances to health.

As it denies the possibility of a bailout, the EU has been desperately voicing its confidence in Greece's ability to contain spending and pay down debt in the hopes investors will give the country a break and stop betting on its fiscal demise.

A number of investors now appear inclined to think the politicians will go to any length to avoid the humiliation of a member state going bust or being bailed out, by the EU or by the IMF.

The result could leave Greece and other debt-plagued countries in the 16-member euro zone in limbo -- without the boost of a bailout or the catastrophe of a default, but stuck for years in an uphill struggle to gets its finances straight that will mean lower salaries for many workers, especially those in public jobs, plus higher interest rates and less chance that governments can spend to stimulate their economies.