Wall Street tumbled on Thursday as news of Apple lowering its revenue forecast increased investor concern that U.S.-Sino trade tensions are eating into company results.
The S&P 500 fell 19 points, or 0.78%, as of 9:30 AM ET (14:30 GMT), while the Dow decreased 169 points, or 0.73%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite lost 80 points, or 1.20%.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) fell more than 8% after CEO Tim Cook said in a letter late Wednesday the company expects sales of $84 billion for the last quarter, down from earlier estimates of $89 billion to $93 billion. The lowered guidance is due to a steep decline in Chinese sales, as trade tensions have put pressure on China’s economy.
The news put a shadow over upcoming earnings results later in the month.
"This provides solid evidence of how slowing economic growth and a trade war make the best death cocktail for sentiment," said Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at Think Markets UK.
Chipmakers were down, with Micron (NASDAQ:MU) slipping 2.7% and Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) down 1.96%. IBM (NYSE:IBM) was off 1.1%. Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) fell 1.3%, while Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) declined 0.2%.
Celgene (NASDAQ:CELG) skyrocketed 28.8% after Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY) announced it was planning to buy the company for $74 billion. Bristol was down 11% after the news.
Meanwhile, Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) inched up 1.2%, while Barrick Gold (NYSE:GOLD) gained 1% and Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) rose 0.2%.
In commodities, gold futures rose 0.5% to $1,290.25 a troy ounce and crude oil increased 0.7% to $46.88 a barrel. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, slumped 0.3% to 96.11.
-- Reuters contributed to this report.
