Losses in technology stocks weighed on Wall Street's main indexes on Tuesday as investors booked profits following the recent strong run and uncertainty in Washington after another high-profile exit from the Trump administration.
Shares of Microsoft, Facebook and Alphabet fell more than 1 percent and were top losers on the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq. Technology stocks have rallied 11 percent this year, the most among major 11 S&P sectors.
US President Donald Trump fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson after a series of public rifts over issues including North Korea and Russia. Tillerson's exit comes just a week after the departure of chief economic adviser Gary Cohn in the wake of a surprise turn toward new trade tariffs on steel and aluminium.
Trump also said he was considering conservative commentator Larry Kudlow "very strongly" to become his next top economic adviser. "Technology rallied hard yesterday and last week, and there is profit-taking, but it's just a short-term pressure," said Ken Polcari, director of the NYSE floor division at O'Neil Securities in New York.
"There's a lot of noise coming out of Washington over all these changes that's causing the markets to really not focus." At 12:45 pm ET, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 25.78 points, or 0.1 percent, at 25,152.83, the S&P 500 was down 6.01 points, or 0.22 percent, at 2,777.01 and the Nasdaq Composite was down 44.76 points, or 0.59 percent, at 7,543.57.
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