NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street stocks fell sharply Thursday after an early afternoon rally off their lows failed to take hold, and a selloff in tech and oil shares quickly drove the Dow down more than 200 points.

The NASDAQ, heavy in technology shares, fell more than 100 points, or almost 4 percent

Based on early and unofficial data, the Dow Jones industrial average closed off 205.48 points, or 1.95 percent to 10,318.59.

The NASDAQ closed at 2,749.70, off 107.67 points, or 3.77 percent.

Oil shares, a strong point for the market all session, weakened late in the day from their intra-session high after U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said he was ``seriously considering'' a request to sell crude oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve in order to push down crude oil and home heating oil prices this winter.

Among Dow stocks, Exxon Corp. (NYSE:XON - news) fell 11/16 to 74-13/16 and Chevron Corp. (NYSE:CHV - news) fell 7/16 to 89-3/16, as both reversed early gains.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index 30.10 points or 2.3 percent to 1,280.41 with losses mounting quickly after the benchmark fell convincingly below 1,300, a level that had served as a psychological floor for the market in recent session.

``It looks like we broke some key areas and that's triggered even more selling,'' said Guy Truicko, portfolio manager at Unity Management in Garden City.

Contributing to the overall bearish tone was renewed weakness in the dollar while a firmer tone in the bond market did little to offset the selling pressure. Indeed some money appeared to head from stocks into the bond market, where the 30-year U.S. Treasury surged 1-4/32 to yield 6.00 percent.