Stocks fall, tech sinks on trade angst

U.S. stocks fell, with the S&P 500 flirting with a correction as technology shares tumbled after a report the Trump administration was set to press its trade war with China. The dollar rallied.

The S&P 500 fell as much as 11 per cent from its all-time high before paring the drop in the final 15 minutes of trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid more than 500 points at its worst, dipping into a correction before closing down one per cent. The Nasdaq 100 Index tumbled to the lowest level since May. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq indexes are on track for the steepest monthly declines of the record-long bull market.

Selling intensified after Bloomberg reported the U.S. is preparing to announce by early December tariffs on all remaining Chinese imports if talks next month between presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping fail to ease the trade war. That stoked anxiety in markets already under pressure by concerns from peak earnings growth to the end of easy money and rising rates.

“There’s this pessimism that has been hanging on this market the whole month,” Chris Zaccarelli at the Independent Advisor Alliance said. “A trade war with China was one of the bigger overhangs. Any reminders of that just leads to more pessimism. Out of all the fears out there, that’s the one sticking most in peoples’ minds.”

American investors will now turn to earnings this week from tech giants Facebook Inc. and Apple Inc., along with the October jobs report on Friday. Earnings have not been able to save other megacap tech names. Amazon plunged six per cent Monday, Netflix lost five per cent and Microsoft gave up 2.9 per cent. Boeing led declines in the Dow, with a plunge of almost 6.6 per cent. IBM fell 4.1 per cent after agreeing to buy Red Hat.

“There’s a not-so-faint scent of desperation,” said Christopher Harvey, head of equity strategy at Wells Fargo. “No catalysts left, Fed action will doom the market, trade will only get worse.”

Elsewhere, Brazilian assets rose after Jair Bolsonaro swept to power, and the euro fell as German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she will quit as head of her party after nearly two decades, though she intends to see out her term as head of state.