Stock Market Sell-Off: Dow Falls Over 600 Points As Tech Shares Plunge Again

The market moved sharply lower on Tuesday—and the Nasdaq hit correction territory—as the widespread sell-off in tech stocks continued, following the sector’s worst drop since March last week.

 

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 2.3%, over 600 points, on Tuesday, while the S&P 500 fell 2.8% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite lost 4.1%.

 

The Nasdaq officially entered correction territory, falling by more than 10% in just the last three days of trading.

 

The tech sell-off continued on Tuesday, dragging the market lower as investors once again rotated out of hot Nasdaq stocks: Shares of Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google-parent Alphabet fell more than 3%, while Apple dropped over 6%.

 

Semiconductor and chip stocks—including Nvidia, Micron and Advanced Micro Devices—plunged after the U.S. Department of Defense over the weekend floated the idea of blacklisting China’s largest chipmaker, SMIC.

 

Shares of Tesla tanked 21%—the stock’s largest one-day drop in history—after the S&P Dow Jones Indices decided not to add it to the S&P 500 index last Friday, instead choosing Etsy, Teradyne and Catalent.

 

Electric truck maker and Tesla rival Nikola, meanwhile, surged by up to 53% on Tuesday after General Motors announced an 11% stake—worth $2 billion—in the company.

 

SoftBank’s stock also fell 7% after it was identified that the investment juggernaut had bought billions of dollars in call options in Big Tech names including Tesla, Amazon, Microsoft and Netflix, potentially driving up valuations.