Tech Stocks Sell Off Further as Wall Street Opens; Nasdaq Falls 400 Points

Investing.com -- The sharp sell-off in technology stocks that began at the end of last week gathered pace as U.S. markets reopened in gloomy fashion after the long Labor Day weekend.

The Nasdaq Composite, which has hit a series of new record highs over recent weeks, fell 390 points, or 3.4%, by 9:35 AM ET (1335 GMT) in what appeared to be an overdue correction. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average were dragged lower, but to a lesser extent. The Dow fell 398 points or 1.4% to 27,736 points and the S&P 500 fell 1.8%.

Leading the losers was Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) stock, which fell 15% after being hit by a combination of two factors. The market struggled to digest a $5 billion stock offering placed at the end of last week, while there was also widespread disappointment at the refusal of Standard & Poor's to include it in the S&P 500 index in its most recent review. Much of Tesla's 160% rise since June had been down to speculation that some of the trillions of dollars invested in S&P tracking funds would have to be reallocated to Tesla as it broke into the index. 

Other gigacap stocks that had rallied strongly in recent weeks also saw some sharp profit-taking. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) stock fell 5.7%, while Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) stock fell 3.6%, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) stock fell 3.5% while Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) stock fell 4.4%, All of them are still well above their pre-pandemic levels, however.

More positively, electric truck-maker Nikola (NASDAQ:NKLA) rose 26% after General Motors agreed to take a $2 billion equity stake in the company. GM (NYSE:GM) stock also rose 5.6% on perceptions of a shrewd acquisition.

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