US open: Amazon.com, Tesla hit by selling
Stocks are down again, although losses outside of the technology arena are contained for the moment.
As of 1527 BST, the Dow Jones Industrials is edging lower by 0.10% or 24.45 points to 23,833.26, alongside a fall of 0.40% or 10.48 points to 2,602.14 for the S&P 500, while the Nasdaq Composite is declining 1.04% or 73.15 points to 6,933.08.
Weighing on the tech-heavy Nasdaq were shares in Amazon.com, following a report from Axios stating that US president Donald Trump is "obsessed" about Amazon, whose chief Jeff Bezos is also the owner of The Washington Post.
Yet analysts at Stifel reportedly stuck by their previous recommendation to 'buy' Amazon, telling clients "we already know president Trump doesn't like Amazon."
From a sector standpoint, and with the S&P 500 hovering not too far from its 200-day moving average, which many technical analysts consider an important level of 'support', defensives were clearly in greater demand on Wednesday.
As a group, Tobacco was higher by 2.18%, alongside gains in interest-rate sensitive areas of the market such as Fixed line telecommunications (1.67%) and Telecommunications (1.51%).
Earlier, analysts at UniCredit had pointed to the recent stream of negative news as the trigger for the sell-off in the US tech sector, but said that in reality the underlying cause was "extremely stretched valuation metrics that have generated a sizeable misalignment with fundamentals, mostly for the big technology stocks.
"With sector price to earnings and price to book ratios trading significantly above their long-term averages, it should not come as a surprise that some negative news would precipitate a sell-off. We see this continuing, either with US tech stocks underperforming a rising equity market or weakening materially if risk aversion remains high. In the last few weeks we have recommended a rotation towards defensive sectors, which are more attractive at this stage in the cycle and are more insulated in the event that trade conflicts escalate."
Economic data released on Wednesday generally came in on the strong side of things, with the Commerce Department revising its previous estimate for fourth quarter gross domestic product higher by four tenths of a percentage point to 2.9%.
Significantly as well, in parallel Commerce announced that America's trade shortfall in goods with the rest of the world undershot forecasts in February, printing at $75.4bn (consensus: $78.3bn).
Pending home sales also surprised positively, with NAR reporting that its index tracking activity in the sector jumped by 3.1% month-on-month in February (consensus: 2.0%).
To take note of, the US Treasury was set to auction $29bn in seven-year notes and $15bn in 1 year and 10 month FRNs later in the session.
Back in the corporate patch, Tesla was also under selling pressure, with some market commentary pointing out the question marks in the market around a recent fatal car crash involving one of its Model X vehicles.
Walgreens shares on the other hand were up a tad after posting a 12% jump in quarterly sales and lifting its guidance, while Blackberry surged after the company's fourth-quarter profit and sales beat analysts' expectations.
In deal news, Plantronics said it will buy video conferencing gear maker Polycom for $2bn, while US-listed shares of Shire rallied after Japanese rival Takeda Pharmaceutical said it was considering a buyout of the company.
Dow Jones - Risers
Procter & Gamble Co. (PG) $78.78 3.10%
Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) $48.00 1.98%
Coca-Cola Co. (KO) $43.46 1.79%
Merck & Co. Inc. (MRK) $54.68 1.18%
Pfizer Inc. (PFE) $35.43 1.11%
American Express Co. (AXP) $92.34 1.01%
McDonald's Corp. (MCD) $158.93 0.58%
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) $128.05 0.52%
Home Depot Inc. (HD) $175.38 0.40%
International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) $152.40 0.32%
Dow Jones - Fallers
Intel Corp. (INTC) $49.44 -3.42%
Visa Inc. (V) $116.78 -3.20%
JP Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM) $107.04 -2.96%
General Electric Co. (GE) $13.12 -2.38%
3M Co. (MMM) $216.02 -1.92%
Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) $41.91 -1.80%
United Technologies Corp. (UTX) $124.52 -1.67%
Boeing Co. (BA) $316.31 -1.50%
Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) $144.81 -1.48%
Apple Inc. (AAPL) $166.57 -1.05%
S&P 500 - Risers
Welltower Inc (WELL) $55.08 5.64%
Ventas Inc. (VTR) $50.51 4.77%
Iron Mountain Inc (New) (IRM) $32.69 4.54%
Altria Group Inc. (MO) $61.97 3.98%
Realty Income Corp. (O) $51.91 3.92%
Vornado Realty Trust (VNO) $67.63 3.79%
Macy's Inc. (M) $28.88 3.49%
Patterson Companies Inc. (PDCO) $22.43 3.44%
Allergan plc (AGN) $165.71 3.36%
Church Dwight Co Inc. (CHD) $49.74 3.28%
S&P 500 - Fallers
Franklin Resources Inc. (BEN) $33.93 -9.78%
Range Resources Corp. (RRC) $14.22 -5.95%
Amazon.Com Inc. (AMZN) $1,409.50 -5.85%
United States Steel Corp. (X) $33.36 -5.76%
Southwestern Energy Co. (SWN) $4.23 -5.37%
Red Hat Inc. (RHT) $145.05 -5.25%
Charles Schwab Corp. (SCHW) $50.61 -4.44%
Raytheon Co. (RTN) $209.41 -4.26%
Teradata Corp. (TDC) $38.99 -4.26%
Newfield Exploration Co (NFX) $23.58 -4.26%
Nasdaq 100 - Risers
Shire Plc Ads (SHPG) $148.63 15.33%
Celgene Corp. (CELG) $87.99 2.54%
O'Reilly Automotive Inc. (ORLY) $243.48 1.89%
Mylan Inc. (MYL) $40.21 1.72%
Henry Schein Inc. (HSIC) $66.18 1.69%
Cerner Corp. (CERN) $58.55 1.56%
Kraft Heinz Co. (KHC) $61.56 1.42%
Biogen Inc (BIIB) $268.52 1.27%
Gilead Sciences Inc. (GILD) $74.96 1.15%
Dollar Tree Inc (DLTR) $94.55 0.98%
Nasdaq 100 - Fallers
Tesla Inc (TSLA) $257.43 -7.79%
Amazon.Com Inc. (AMZN) $1,409.50 -5.85%
Netflix Inc. (NFLX) $288.32 -4.11%
Baidu Inc. (BIDU) $222.88 -3.50%
Intel Corp. (INTC) $49.44 -3.42%
Lam Research Corp. (LRCX) $196.79 -2.88%
JD.com, Inc. (JD) $39.69 -2.51%
Workday, Inc. (WDAY) $123.43 -2.38%
NetEase Inc. Ads (NTES) $274.28 -2.31%
Microchip Technology Inc. (MCHP) $92.34 -2.18%