US close: Tech plays lead Wall Street lower once again
US stocks finished in the red again on Wednesday, although losses outside of the technology arena were less stark than those seen on Tuesday.
Dow Jones I.A.
38,239.66
04:30 15/10/20
Nasdaq 100
17,718.30
12:15 26/04/24
The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished 0.04% lower at 23,848.42, the S&P 500 was down 0.29% at 2,605.00, and the Nasdaq 100 slid 1.06% to 6,460.81.
Weighing on the tech-heavy Nasdaq were shares in Amazon.com, following a report from Axios stating that US president Donald Trump is "obsessed" about Amazon, whose chief Jeff Bezos is also the owner of The Washington Post.
Yet analysts at Stifel reportedly stuck by their previous recommendation to 'buy' Amazon, telling clients "we already know president Trump doesn't like Amazon."
Amazon shares finished the day down 4.38%.
Earlier, analysts at UniCredit had pointed to the recent stream of negative news as the trigger for the sell-off in the US tech sector, but said that in reality the underlying cause was "extremely stretched valuation metrics that have generated a sizeable misalignment with fundamentals, mostly for the big technology stocks.
“With sector price to earnings and price to book ratios trading significantly above their long-term averages, it should not come as a surprise that some negative news would precipitate a sell-off,” the analysts said.
“We see this continuing, either with US tech stocks underperforming a rising equity market or weakening materially if risk aversion remains high.”
Economic data released on Wednesday generally came in on the strong side of things, with the Commerce Department revising its previous estimate for fourth quarter gross domestic product higher by four tenths of a percentage point to 2.9%.
Commerce also announced that America's trade shortfall in goods with the rest of the world undershot forecasts in February, printing at $75.4bn, compared to consensus forecasts for $78.3bn.
Pending home sales also surprised positively, with NAR reporting that its index tracking activity in the sector jumped by 3.1% month-on-month in February, well above the consensus estimate for 2.0%.
Back on the corporate patch, Tesla was under selling pressure, falling 7.67% after some market commentary pointed out question marks in the market around a recent fatal car crash involving one of its Model X vehicles.
Walgreens Boots Alliance shares on the other hand were up 2.47% after posting a 12% jump in quarterly sales and lifting its guidance, while Blackberry reversed earlier gains to fall 1.61% even after the company's fourth-quarter profit and sales beat analysts' expectations.
In deal news, Plantronics said it will buy video conferencing gear maker Polycom for $2bn, while US-listed shares of Shire rallied after Japanese rival Takeda Pharmaceutical said it was considering a buyout of the company.
Plantronics stock was ahead 4.63%, while Shire’s American depositary receipts surged 12.15%.
Dow Jones - Risers
Procter & Gamble Co. (PG) $78.84 3.18%
Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) $48.01 2.00%
Merck & Co. Inc. (MRK) $55.09 1.94%
General Electric Co. (GE) $13.68 1.79%
Coca-Cola Co. (KO) $43.32 1.48%
American Express Co. (AXP) $92.19 0.86%
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) $249.33 0.85%
Pfizer Inc. (PFE) $35.30 0.74%
Travelers Company Inc. (TRV) $138.80 0.41%
International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) $152.54 0.40%
Dow Jones - Fallers
Intel Corp. (INTC) $49.60 -3.11%
Visa Inc. (V) $116.99 -3.03%
Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) $41.66 -2.39%
Chevron Corp. (CVX) $112.12 -2.23%
JP Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM) $108.00 -2.09%
Dowdupont Inc. (DWDP) $62.41 -1.93%
United Technologies Corp. (UTX) $124.45 -1.73%
3M Co. (MMM) $216.52 -1.68%
Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) $72.81 -1.61%
Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) $145.16 -1.24%
S&P 500 - Risers
Welltower Inc (WELL) $54.85 5.22%
Altria Group Inc. (MO) $62.44 4.77%
Ventas Inc. (VTR) $50.46 4.67%
Iron Mountain Inc (New) (IRM) $32.71 4.61%
Macy's Inc. (M) $29.07 4.19%
Sl Green Realty Corp. (SLG) $97.98 3.76%
Equity Residential (EQR) $61.55 3.71%
Kimberly-Clark Corp. (KMB) $109.43 3.67%
Realty Income Corp. (O) $51.76 3.62%
Vornado Realty Trust (VNO) $67.52 3.62%
S&P 500 - Fallers
Franklin Resources Inc. (BEN) $34.11 -9.31%
United Rentals Inc. (URI) $169.07 -6.35%
Occidental Petroleum Corp. (OXY) $63.13 -6.03%
Marathon Oil Corp. (MRO) $15.32 -5.84%
United States Steel Corp. (X) $33.54 -5.25%
Range Resources Corp. (RRC) $14.33 -5.22%
National Oilwell Varco Inc. (NOV) $35.93 -5.20%
Newfield Exploration Co (NFX) $23.40 -4.99%
Netflix Inc. (NFLX) $285.77 -4.96%
Teradata Corp. (TDC) $38.76 -4.84%
Nasdaq 100 - Risers
Shire Plc Ads (SHPG) $144.53 12.15%
Celgene Corp. (CELG) $88.41 3.03%
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. (REGN) $338.48 2.81%
Biogen Inc (BIIB) $271.82 2.51%
Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. (WBA) $67.59 2.47%
Mylan Inc. (MYL) $40.50 2.45%
Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. (ALXN) $110.61 2.10%
Biomarin Pharmaceutical Inc. (BMRN) $79.62 2.02%
Henry Schein Inc. (HSIC) $66.27 1.83%
Cerner Corp. (CERN) $58.64 1.72%
Nasdaq 100 - Fallers
Tesla Inc (TSLA) $257.78 -7.67%
Netflix Inc. (NFLX) $285.77 -4.96%
Amazon.Com Inc. (AMZN) $1,431.42 -4.38%
Microchip Technology Inc. (MCHP) $91.16 -3.43%
Baidu Inc. (BIDU) $223.10 -3.40%
Lam Research Corp. (LRCX) $196.21 -3.16%
Broadcom Limited (AVGO) $236.68 -3.15%
Mercadolibre Inc. (MELI) $341.22 -3.12%
Intel Corp. (INTC) $49.60 -3.11%
Autodesk Inc. (ADSK) $124.55 -2.93%