Consumer confidence is at its highest level in seven months, and home prices are up for the sixth month in a row, but often one person's gain is another's loss. The S&P 500 suffered its biggest loss since June on Tuesday--15.30 points-just over one percent.

The Nasdaq was down 1.36 percent, its biggest loss since July. The Dow Jones closed down over 100 points.

The dives were driven by poor showings from Apple, which sold out of its new iPhone 5 model. Apple has also received poor reviews for its new mapping application.

Caterpillar, a maker of heavy machinery, posted heavy losses, pulling down the Dow, after it announced slow growth in international markets. FedEx also lowered expectations for future performance.

While the increase in housing prices is good for homeowners, it may drive rental prices up, and it makes it more difficult for investors to purchase real estate.

Red Hat, the largest Linux software distributor in the world, reported lower profits than expected, dropping 4.3 percent.

Thirty-year treasury bonds rose for the seventh straight day, the longest such streak in nearly four years. U.S. government securities also rose, as news of Europe's debt crisis worsened.

Tuesday's losses offset recent gains. The market "has rallied and climbed a wall of worry," said Jim Fehrenbach, head of equity distribution at Piper Jaffray in Minneapolis, speaking to Reuters. "Right now the market is getting skittish and looking for reasons for buyers to be less aggressive."

While the U.S. economy is still recovering slowly from the recession that began in 2008, many economists say it could have been much worse, if not for government investment and stimulus.

Still, the future is difficult to predict, but likely to be volatile. ""The market is still bid, and we are seeing more of the same with respect to concern over global growth," said Larry Milstein, managing director in New York of government-debt trading at R.W. Pressprich & Co., speaking to Bloomberg Business News.

"The reality is we are still looking at a very slow global growth and a lot of uncertainty."