Investors started the second quarter on a sour note as a more than 2 per cent drop dragged Wall Street back into correction territory and below key fundamental levels, while bond yields dropped to a two-month low.
Further steep falls for tech stocks — including Amazon, Tesla and Intel — saw the Nasdaq Composite briefly down more than 10 per cent from its March record high, while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped deeper into correction territory and retested multi-month lows.
Concerns about the breakout of a global trade war were revived after China decided Sunday to impose tariffs on US food imports in retaliation to Donald Trump’s plan in March to slap duties on steel and aluminium shipments. That weighed heavily on US meat producers as well as key industrial stocks.