Wall Street dropped on Thursday, weighed down by losses in Apple and other technology stocks as investors turned their attention to a U.S. Senate Republican plan that could delay corporate tax rate cuts expected by investors.
The S&P 500 has risen about 21 percent since the election of President Donald Trump a year ago, fuelled by his promises to cut corporate taxes and other business-friendly measures.
The Senate on Thursday was expected to unveil a tax cut bill that differs significantly from one detailed last week in the House, complicating matters for the Trump administration.
Bill Cassidy, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, said the Senate tax proposal would delay a corporate tax cut by a year to 2019, while Senator John Cornyn said Senate Republicans were looking to avoid such a delay.
"It`s been a year since the election. We`ve gone up 22 percent on hopes of what the Trump agenda would bring, and while they`re trying to work toward this thing, they haven`t really accomplished much yet," said Michael O`Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading in Greenwich, Connecticut.
"If progress is not made, the equity market should either pause or correct until meaningful progress is made."
At 2:20 pm ET (1920 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average <.dji> was down 0.52 percent at 23,441.42, while the S&P 500 <.spx> had lost 0.53 percent to 2,580.73.
The Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> dropped 0.78 percent to 6,735.91.
The Philadelphia Semiconductor index <.sox>, a top performer in 2017, slumped 2.25 percent ahead of a quarterly report by Nvidia
Seven of the 11 major S&P 500 sectors fell, with the technology <.splrct> index`s 1.31 percent loss leading the decliners.
Apple
Technology has been the best performing S&P 500 sector so far this year with a 37 percent rise, despite concerns of stretched valuations.
Roku
Macy`s
Dish Network
Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 1.89-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.71-to-1 ratio favoured decliners.
(This article has not been edited by Zeebiz editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)
01:14 AM IST