Investing.com – Wall Street fell on Thursday, as investors digested fresh developments related to a formal impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.
The Dow lost 35 points or 0.1% by 9:55 AM ET (13:55 GMT), while the S&P 500 was down 10 points or 0.3% and the Nasdaq composite declined 46 points or 0.6%.
A U.S. House Intelligence Committee released a declassified version of a whistleblower report alleging Trump tried to get Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden, whose father Joe is likely opponent in the 2020 presidential election.
The whistleblower's report alleged that White House officials had tried to "lock down" a transcript of the call, aware that it revealed impropriety by the President. Trump himself authorized the release of the transcript on Wednesday, saying he had nothing to hide.
The U.S. House of Representatives had started the impeachment process on Tuesday on the allegations, causing stocks to drop earlier in the week. Markets recovered however, after Trump hinted that a trade deal with China could be reached soon.
“We need something like a trade deal to get through. Without that we are just going to bounce around here where you if get some bad political news, it sells off," said Kim Forrest, Chief investment officer at Bokeh Capital Partners in Pittsburgh.
Banking stocks were down, with Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) falling 0.3%, while JP Morgan dipped 0.3%. Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) slumped 1.2%, while Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) declined 1.7% and Accenture (NYSE:ACN) was down 0.7% after its forecasts for its current fiscal quarter came in lower than expected.
Elsewhere, Beyond Meat (NASDAQ:BYND) surged 11% after McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD) announced that it is testing the plant-based burger at some of its Canadian stores.
In commodities, the U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, lost 0.2% to 98.488 and gold futures rose 0.4% to $1,517.75 a troy ounce. Crude oil futures lost 1.2% to $55.88 a barrel.
-Reuters contributed to this report