Wall Street kicks off September on downbeat note at start of data-packed week

by Johann M Cherian and Purvi Agarwal, Reuters

Wall Street’s main indexes fell over 1% as investors assessed latest factory activity data, with a slew of labor market reports due through the week that could influence the extent of monetary policy easing by the Federal Reserve this year.

A gauge of U.S. manufacturing edged up in August from an eight-month low in July amid some improvement in employment, but the overall trend continued to point to subdued factory activity.

The S&P 500 industrials sector (.SPLRCI), opens new tab fell more than 1.6% on Tuesday, with stocks such as Caterpillar (CAT.N), opens new tab and 3M (MMM.N), opens new tab weighing on the blue-chip Dow as well.

Rate-sensitive chip stocks such as Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab also fell 5.4%, sending the Philadelphia SE Semiconductor index (.SOX), opens new tab down 4.1%, while megacaps Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab and Alphabet (GOOGL.O), opens new tab lost more than 1.6% each.

 

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