US: Wall Street drops on trade war concerns; Tesla slides

[NEW YORK] Wall Street’s main indexes fell on Monday (Mar 10) as US President Donald Trump’s comments over the weekend stoked fears that a trade war could spark an economic slowdown, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq and the benchmark S&P 500 near five-month lows.

At 09:50 am ET the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 307.75 points, or 0.72 per cent, to 42,492.47, the S&P 500 lost 74.89 points, or 1.30 per cent, to 5,695.31, and the Nasdaq Composite lost 371.78 points, or 2.03 per cent, to 17,826.75.

Mega-cap growth stocks felt the heat. Nvidia fell 2.2 per cent, while Meta and Amazon.com were down more than 3 per cent each.

Tesla was down 7 per cent, the lowest since Nov 5, after UBS cut its forecast for the automaker’s first-quarter deliveries and lowered its price target on the stock.

The technology sector lost 2.6 per cent, leading sectoral declines on the S&P 500. The domestically focused small-cap Russell 2000 index fell 1 per cent.

JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs declined more than 3 per cent each, weighing on the broader banks index. REUTERS