U.S. stocks closed sharply lower on Wall Street, pulled down by more steep losses in big technology companies.
Apple, Microsoft and Facebook all came under heavy selling pressure Monday. Industrial companies also took a beating. Boeing was the biggest drag on the Dow Jones industrial average with a loss of 4.5 percent.
The losses came after the U.S. and China clashed at a Pacific Rim summit over the weekend, dashing hopes raised last week that the two economic giants were making progress on resolving their damaging trade dispute. Talks continue ahead of a meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump planned for the G-20 summit later this month.
The Dow lost 396 points, or 1.6 percent, to 25,017. It was down as much as 512 points. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index fell nearly 46 points, or 1.7 percent, to 2,691. The technology-packed Nasdaq composite suffered the biggest declines, falling 219 points, or 3 percent, to 7,029.
Retailers and industrial stocks also fell. Apple slumped nearly 4 percent and Microsoft dropped 3.4 percent while internet retailer Amazon tumbled 5.1 percent.
High-dividend-paying stocks like real estate companies and utilities, which investors favor when they are fearful of market turmoil, held up better than the rest of the market.
Shares of automaker Nissan sank after its chairman was arrested on misconduct charges.
TECH LOSSES MOUNT
Apple gave up 3.96 percent to $185.86 and Facebook sank 5.7 percent to $131.55. Microsoft lost 3.4 percent to $104.62. Chipmaker Nvidia dropped another 12 percent to $144.70 after it said last week that it had a large number of unsold chips because of a big drop in mining of cryptocurrencies.
BREAKDOWN AT NISSAN
Nissan said its chairman, Carlos Ghosn, was arrested Monday and will be dismissed from the company after allegedly under-reporting his income. Nissan said an internal investigation found Ghosn under-reported his income by millions of dollars and engaged in other “significant misconduct.”
U.S.-traded shares of Nissan lost 5.5 percent to $16.96. In Paris, shares of Nissan’s partner Renault dropped 8.4 percent.
SHARP LOSSES
Amazon shed 5.1 percent to $1,512.29 and Nike slid 3 percent to $72.52. Netflix fell 5.5 percent to $270.608.
Caterpillar fell 3.1 percent to $125.98. Defense contractor Raytheon lost 3.1 percent to $176.44.
Benchmark U.S. crude reversed an early loss and rose 0.2 percent to $56.55 a barrel in New York. U.S. crude prices have dropped for six weeks in a row and are trading around their lowest level in about nine months.
The parent company of California utility Pacific Gas & Electric fell again after it disclosed that it had a power line failure near the start of a deadly wildfire the morning the fire began. The Mercury News of San Jose reported Saturday that the company said in a filing that it had an outage at 6:45 a.m. on Nov. 8 in Concow. Authorities say 76 people have been confirmed dead in the Camp Fire. The stock has lost half its value since Nov. 8 in spite of a big rally on Friday.
Bond prices rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 3.06 percent from 3.07 percent.
