Tech stocks pull down Wall Street
Worries about inflation hurt tech stocks, and that sector in turn pulled Wall Street lower Monday. Shares of tech titans like Apple and Microsoft fell as signs of growing inflation pressures raised investor concerns that the Federal Reserve will tighten monetary policy.
RiverFront Investment Group senior market strategist Rebecca Felton says corporate America is most anxious about inflation.
“Over 30% of companies reporting noted inflation is a concern, and we had really expected taxes might be the top of their list. But it was inflation, and we're hearing everything from cost of shipping to an inability to attract workers.”
Investors will get signs of whether rising prices have hurt consumer demand when major retailers report this week, starting with Walmart, Home Depot and Macy’s on Tuesday.
Stocks ended well off the session’s lows. The Dow shed 0.2% while the S&P 500 lost a quarter percent and the Nasdaq dropped four-tenth percent.
Shares of both AT&T and Discovery fell after the owner of Warner Brothers and CNN said it’s spinning off its media empire to combine with Discovery’s lifestyle channels to create a standalone media giant.
Elon Musk’s tweets about Tesla’s bitcoin holdings sent shares of cryptocurrency related stocks south. Riot Blockchain dropped 6% and Coinbase declined 4%.
