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Investors uneasy about the holiday shopping season gave back some of Wall Street's recent gains Monday, sending the Dow Jones industrial average down more than 360 points.

While initial reports about the start of holiday shopping this weekend suggested sales were better than some retailers and analysts expected, Americans are clearly extremely cautious. That has Wall Street concerned about the impact of a continuing drop in consumer spending on the economy.

According to preliminary figures released by RCT ShopperTrak, a research firm that tracks total retail sales at more than 50,000 outlets, sales rose 3 percent to $10.6 billion on Black Friday - the day after Thanksgiving that is traditionally one of the biggest shopping days of the year. But some analysts are concerned that Black Friday's results aren't indicative of the rest of the weekend.

"After a slow start to November, we believe strength on Black Friday was not enough to save the month," said John Morris, an analyst at Wachovia Capital Markets. "The strength did not carry through the remainder of the weekend, as business fell off sharply on Saturday, according to our field team."

RCT ShopperTrak is expected to release data for the combined Friday and Saturday period on Monday.

Wall Street is concerned that consumers, by curtailing their spending further, won't be able to help lift the economy from its slump.

Meanwhile, a pair of downbeat economic reports did little to alleviate investors' concerns. The Institute for Supply Management, a trade group of purchasing executives, said its index of manufacturing activity fell to a 26-year low in November. At the same time, the Commerce Department said construction spending fell by a larger-than-expected amount in October.

Both the housing and manufacturing sectors have been suffering for some time, so the reports were ultimately unsurprising. Still, they served as further evidence that the economy remains under pressure.

Some stock selling was to be expected Monday considering the magnitude of last week's advance, when stocks posted some of their steepest gains in decades. The Dow has gained 16.9 percent and the S&P 500 index 19.1 percent since a rally that began Nov. 21; it was the first five-day string of gains for both the Dow and the S&P 500 since July 2007.

In midmorning trading, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 365.66, or 4.14 percent, to 8,463.38. Standard & Poor's 500 index dropped 42.36, or 4.73 percent, to 853.88, while the Nasdaq composite index fell 69.64, or 4.54 percent, to 1,465.93.