US close: Stocks tumble following heavy tech selloff
Wall Street indices tumbled on Thursday as tech stocks snapped a ten-day winning streak.
At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 2.78% at 28,292.73, while the S&P 500 was 3.51% softer at 3,455.06 and the Nasdaq Composite saw out the session 4.96% weaker at 11,458.10.
The Dow Jones closed 807.77 points lower on Thursday, more than reversing gains recorded in the previous session.
As far as Thursday was concerned, the day's main focus was the weekly jobless claims report from the Department of Labor.
New filings for jobless claims came to 881,000 in the week ended 29 August, ahead of estimates for a reading of 950,000 as the employment market seemingly continued its gradual recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. Continuing claims fell sharply, dropping by 1.24m to 13.25m.
Also in focus, America's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta has told state governments to make preparations for the large-scale distribution of a Covid-19 vaccine.
Now, according to a letter seen by Bloomberg, the Department of Health and Human Services and CDC "are rapidly making preparations to implement large-scale distribution of Covid-19 vaccines in the fall of 2020."
If proven correct, distribution would commence two days before the presidential election on 3 November.
Back on the macro front, the US trade deficit widened to its largest level in 12 years in July, with the surplus on services plunging to its lowest in eight years. The overall gap of goods and services expanded to $63.6bn, according to the Commerce Department, wider than the $58bn predicted by economists. Exports increased 8.1% to $168.1bn, while imports grew 10.9% to $231.7bn.
Elsewhere, US services industry growth decelerated in August, according to the Institute for Supply Management, which revealed its non-manufacturing activity index fell to a reading of 56.9 last month - down from 58.1 in July. Economists had forecast the index slipping to 57.
In corporate news, Campbell Soup and Michael Cos both posted earnings that came in ahead of expectations, while Apple shares were down 8% at the close, Amazon and Netflix were both more than 4% lower and Microsoft stocks slumped 6.2%.
On the other hand, stocks tied to the reopening of the economy went the other way, with Carnival and Macy's picking up 5.2% and 8%, respectively.