Banks climb as health, tech stocks slide
NEW YORK — U.S. stocks finished lower Tuesday as losses for health care and technology companies canceled out gains for banks. Another gain for Amazon briefly brought its market value to $1 trillion.
Banks rose as interest rates climbed. Nike slumped after it gave a major endorsement deal to former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, known for his protests of police brutality and racial injustice.
Investors didn't commit to many big moves as trading resumed after the Labor Day holiday. They are likely to focus on trade this week, as the U.S. is scheduled to resume trade talks with Canada on Wednesday and could announce new tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports later in the week.
Mark Hackett, chief of investment research at financial services firm Nationwide, said investors are paying less attention to traderelated headlines recently because they are fairly certain they know how the talks will end.
“I'm still pretty confident that before midterms or by the end of the year we're going to have a handshake agreement with the NAFTA region and China,” he said.
Drugmakers and suppliers took some of the sharpest losses Tuesday, and big technology companies including Facebook and Alphabet, Google's parent company, also slumped.
Nike stock fell 3.2 percent to $79.60 after it said Kaepernick will be one of the faces of its 30th anniversary “Just Do It” campaign. Investors feared a possible backlash from customers.
Tesla skidded 4.2 percent to $288.95 after a Goldman Sachs analyst said the company will face rising competition from other electric car makers as a key federal tax credit is phased out.
Goldman analyst David Tamberrino expects the stock to fall to $210 in six months.
Talks to keep Canada in a revised North American trade deal are scheduled to resume Wednesday as Washington and Ottawa try to break a deadlock over issues such as Canada's dairy market and U.S. efforts to shield drug companies from generic competition.
The U.S. and Mexico announced a preliminary trade deal last week, and while the Trump administration has threatened to leave Canada out of a final deal, investors doubt that will happen.
Hackett, of Nationwide, said talks with China are far more complicated, but investors feel the Chinese government will ultimately make significant concessions. He said that's reflected in the gains for U.S. stocks in recent months and the losses for indexes in China and other emerging markets.
Chinese e-commerce company JD.com slid 6.1 percent to $29.38 after founder and CEO Richard Liu was arrested in Minneapolis. Liu was arrested late Friday on suspicion of criminal sexual conduct and was released pending charges. JD.com said he has returned to China.