US open: Major indices fall as tech stocks come under pressure

Wall Street stocks were in the red early on Tuesday after the Dow Jones and S&P 500 saw out the previous session in the green, with tech stocks under a particular amount of pressure at the start of trading.

As of 1520 BST, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.53% at 33,933.72, while the S&P 500 was 0.95% weaker at 4,152.76 and the Nasdaq Composite came out the gate 2.03% softer at 13,612.77.

The Dow opened 179.51 points lower on Tuesday, taking a considerable bite out of gains recorded in the previous session after market participants backed stocks poised to benefit from an economic reopening.

SpreadEx's Connor Campbell said: "It's a big week for the US markets, but one that takes a while to get to the good stuff, with little of true value to tide investors over until Friday's potentially Fed-shifting nonfarm jobs report."

In the corporate space, Pfizer posted first-quarter revenues of $14.58bn, ahead of expectations of $13.51bn, and upped its full-year sales forecast. Elsewhere, news broke that the US looked set to approve the drugmaker's Covid-19 vaccine for 12-to-15-year-olds as early as next week.

CVS Health shares were also trading higher after the pharmacy chain raised its full-year guidance, while tech giants like Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google-parent Alphabet all traded lower shortly after the open.

On the macro front, the US trade balance came in at -$74.4bn in March, according to the Census Bureau, bigger than the -$74.3bn figure expected on the Street and a 5.6% widening to yet another new record.

Elsewhere, factory orders figures from the Census Bureau revealed a 1.1% increase in orders in March to $512.9bn following a 0.5% drop in February.