Wall St. falls after quarterly results disappoint

(Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell on Tuesday in the wake of results from IBM and United Technologies that dampened early optimism over earnings season as investors awaited quarterly profits from tech giants including Apple and Microsoft.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> fell 179.95 points, or 0.99 percent, to 17,920.46, the S&P 500 <.SPX> lost 9.08 points, or 0.43 percent, to 2,119.2 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> dropped 10.74 points, or 0.21 percent, to 5,208.12.

(Reporting By Sinead Carew; Editing by Nick Zieminski)