Resuming southward journey after a day of relief, the US markets ended sharply in red terrain, led by technology stocks, as reflected by the particularly steep loss posted by the Nasdaq. Social media giant Facebook (FB) helped to lead the way lower, extending a recent downtrend following news CEO Mark Zuckerberg is planning to testify before Congress in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Within the tech sector, semiconductor stocks saw considerable weakness, dragging the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index down by 3.8 percent. The index pulled back sharply after jumping by 4.2 percent on Monday. Chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA) showed a steep drop after halting testing of its driverless technology on public roads following a fatal crash involving a self-driving car.
On the U.S. economic front, the Conference Board released a report showing an unexpected deterioration in consumer confidence in the month of March. The Conference Board said its consumer confidence index dipped to 127.7 in March from a downwardly revised 130.0 in February. The drop surprised economists, who had expected the index to inch up to 131.0 from the 130.8 originally reported for the previous month.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 344.89 points or 1.43 percent to 23,857.71, the Nasdaq dropped 211.74 points or 2.93 percent to 7008.81 and while the S&P 500 was down by 45.93 points or 1.73 percent to 2,612.62.
