US STOCKS-Wall St slides on gloomy sales data, Goldman

                                
 * Worse than expected retail sales fan economic worry
                                
 * Financials slide after Goldman's $5 bln stock issue
                                
 * Dow off 1.7 pct; S&P 500 off 1.9 pct; Nasdaq off 1.8 pct
                                
 * For up-to-the-minute market news click [STXNEWS/US]
 (Updates to early afternoon; changes byline)
                                
 By Ellis Mnyandu
                                
 NEW YORK, April 14 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks tumbled on
Tuesday as an unexpected drop in March retail sales suggested
that the economic slump was far from abating and as Goldman
Sachs <GS.N> slid sharply after a stock offering.
                                
 Casualties in the broad sell-off also included such
economically sensitive plays as energy shares, big
manufacturers, retailers and technology stocks.
                                
 But financials took the biggest beating by far, with the
KBW Bank index <.BKX> falling 6 percent and the S&P financial
index falling 5.8 percent.
                                
 "We haven't seen economic news actually turn positive yet,"
said Dan Faretta, senior market strategist at Lind-Waldock, a
retail brokerage firm, in Chicago. "We're still seeing bad
numbers. They're just not as bad as they were three or four
months ago. Fundamentally the economy has not turned around."
                                
 The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> shed 133.89 points,
or 1.66 percent, to 7,923.92. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index
<.SPX> dropped 15.89 points, or 1.85 percent, to 842.84. The
Nasdaq Composite Index <.IXIC> declined 30.00 points, or 1.81
percent, to 1,623.31.
                                
 U.S. President Barack Obama said there were signs of
recovery, but "by no means are we out of the woods just yet."
For more details see [ID:nN14428395]
                                
 Shares of Goldman Sachs slid 9.3 percent to $118.02, a day
after the company said it would raise $5 billion by issuing
common stock. Such equity offerings are traditionally a drag
due to their dilutive effect.
                                
 Government data showing that retail sales in March snapped
two months of increases sparked selling in such
consumer-oriented stocks as Wal-Mart Stores <WMT.N> , off 1.3
percent to $50.85, Home Depot Inc <HD.N> , down almost 3
percent to $25.22.
                                
 Shares of fast-food company McDonald's Corp <MCD.N>
declined 2.5 percent to $54.68, making the stock one of the top
Dow drags.
                                
 Shares of JPMorgan <JPM.N> , due to post quarterly results
on Thursday, dropped 6.5 percent to $31.51, while among energy
shares, Chevron <CVX.N> declined 2.5 percent to $66.29.
                                
 On Nasdaq, shares of Apple Inc <AAPL.O> , the iPhone maker,
were a top drag, down 2.2 percent to $117.48. Speculation that
Dell may be readying a bid to enter the smartphone market with
a roll-out in China also hit shares of Research in Motion, the
maker of the Blackberry smart phone.
                                
 The financial sector had surged in recent weeks after some
major banks said they had made money in the first two months of
the year, spurring hopes that some stabilization may be
returning to the battered sector.
 (Editing by Theodore d'Afflisio)