Technology stocks were the big losers as Wall Street’s three main share indexes all closed lower.
The Nasdaq shed 110 points, or 2.6%, with traders saying that there was a rush to take profits after a recent strong rise in tech shares.
Facebook, Netflix and Google all lost close to 5%, pushing the Nasdaq to its biggest one-day fall for two months.
The Dow Jones fell 0.96%, or 159 points, and the S&P 500 fell 23 points, or 1.3%, to 1,865.
The S&P had traded at an all-time high earlier in the day.
The stock market falls came despite relatively upbeat data on US jobs growth.
The Department of Labor reported the US economy added 192,000 jobs in March, meeting expectations and pointing to steady improvement in the jobs market.
But analysts said the sell-off was spurred not by the jobs report or other news, but by the same negative sentiment that has hit tech and biotech names intermittently over the last few weeks.
‘Market cracking’
As traders dumped tech stocks, they shifted money into less volatile companies including Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson and utility stocks.
Alan Skrainka, chief investment officer of Cornerstone Wealth Management, said the fall in tech shares was “the frothiest part of the market cracking in a big way”.
Small caps are overvalued and the hottest names in the Nasdaq are leading the way down.”
Uri Landesman, president of the hedge fund Platinum Management, said: “It’s like (traders) took a look at some of these high-flying internet companies and said, ‘how can I justify these prices?'”
Tech stocks had soared over the past year, pushing the Nasdaq 28% higher. Shares in Netflix and Facebook have doubled in price over the year.
Source BBC
