Investing.com – Wall Street tumbled on Tuesday after comments from U.S. President Donald Trump sparked fears that a trade deal with China will be delayed until after the 2020 U.S. presidential election..
Trump told reporters in London that a deal may need to wait until after next year’s election, which is a stark contrast to reports over the last two weeks.
"I suspect it is people wondering whether or not we're going to get something accomplished," said Randy Frederick, vice president of trading and derivatives for Charles Schwab in Austin, Texas.
"Keep in mind that we've new tariffs scheduled to kick in on Dec. 15. And those tariffs are going to apply to consumer goods that have not had any tariffs placed on them yet."
The Dow plunged 385 points, or 1.4%, by 10:18 AM ET (15:18 GMT), while the S&P 500 fell 31 points, or 1%, and the Nasdaq composite lost 86 points, or 1%.
Trade sensitive stocks were lower, with Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) down 2.5%, semiconductor companies Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) and Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) falling close to 3% and Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT) sliding 2.6%.
ELF Beauty (NYSE:ELF) tumbled 6% on the news that it has priced a 3.4 million share offering at $15.90, a 3% discount to the $16.38 closing price on Monday, while Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) fell 1.7% on an analyst warning of increased customer acquisition costs.
Elsewhere, AK Steel Holding Corporation (NYSE:AKS) gained 3.3% after miner Cleveland Cliffs agreed to buy the steel maker for about $1.1 billion in an all-stock deal, while Audentes Therapeutics (NASDAQ:BOLD) surged 105% after Japan's Astellas Pharma said it would buy the U.S. drugmaker for about $3 billion in cash.
In commodities, the U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, was down 0.1% to 97.675 and gold futures gained 1% to $1,483.25 a troy ounce. Crude oil futures inched down 0.1% to $55.93 a barrel.
-Reuters contributed to this report