Wednesday’s selloff in risk and momentum briefly expanded to other parts of the stock market as Wall Street remained skittish about U.S.-China trade tensions.
The Dow was down 177 points, or 0.4%. It briefly fell more than 400 points before dip-buying cut into its losses. A similar drop and rebound occurred in the S&P 500, which was back down 0.6% after falling further. The Nasdaq Composite, which has struggled all day, was down 1.2%.
Market breadth deteriorated just before 12:30 p.m. ET but was already recovering. The decline followed a Reuters report that the U.S. was considering a plan to restrict exports to China of goods that contain or are made with U.S. software. The outlet cited a U.S. official and three people briefed by U.S. authorities. It noted such a plan was not the only option on the table to respond to China’s restrictions of rare earths.
The decline on that news was quickly erased, but the major indexes were still down on the day amid struggles among riskier stocks liked those tied to the artificial intelligence trade.