The rout of Wall Street worsens as China abstains from the market By Reuters

By Sruthi Shankar and Amy Caren Daniel

(Reuters) – US stock markets fell more than 2% on Monday after China announced retaliatory tariffs on US products, highlighting fears of a large-scale trade war between the two largest economies of the world likely to curb global economic growth.

Shares of major technology companies, including Apple Inc. (NASDAQ :), as well as chip makers, manufacturers and retailers who derive much of their revenue from China have been at the heart of the sale.

Apple's shares fell 5.2%, leaving the S & P and the Dow on the way to their largest percentage decline since a day since Jan. 3.

The sale that began with the May 1 stock market bid has now lost almost 5% of its value in less than two weeks.

This still compares favorably to a 20% drop between October 3 and Christmas last year, but traders have again spoken of the end of a decade that goes back to the aftermath of the financial crash of 2008.

The front end of the US interest rate yield curve, which ranges from 3-month US Treasury bonds to 10-year bonds, reversed for the second time in less than a week and is considered a classic sign of the onset of a recession.[US/]

"The sale is a reflection of the fact that trade negotiations are taking place in worse conditions than people expected," said Willie Delwiche, investment strategist at Baird in Milwaukee.

"Investors are trying to understand just how much the rally we had this year may have been celebrating prematurely the hope of a trade deal."

The Chinese Finance Ministry announced on Monday that it planned to impose tariffs ranging from 5% to 25% on 5,140 US products on a list of targets of about $ 60 billion. dollars as of June 1, after the levy was lifted by the United States last week.

Analysts at Bank of America (NYSE :), of Merrill, said the new Chinese tariffs posed a risk of loss of 1% to 3% for S & P 500 earnings in 2019.

The S & P 500 and Nasdaq hit record highs just two weeks ago, hoping for a trade deal and a positive earnings season for the first quarter. The 2.2% drop recorded last week was the worst for the benchmark since December.

Boeing-sensitive tariffs (NYSE 🙂 Co declined 3.6% and caterpillar Inc. (NYSE 🙂 plunged 4.9%.

The flea index in Philadelphia fell 4.2%, which resulted in a 6% drop last week. Qualcomm (NASDAQ 🙂 Inc., Broadcom (NASDAQ 🙂 Inc. and Nvidia Corp all fell between 3% and 4.4%.

This left the decline of 586.00 points, or 2.26%, to 25,356.37 minutes at 11:22 ET. The S & P 500 lost 65.48 points, or 2.27%, to 2,815.92 and the 241.62 points, or 3.05%, to 7,675.32.

Shares of Uber Technologies (NYSE 🙂 Inc. fell 9%, more than double their losses since Wall Street's poorly-received debut Friday.

Banks, which are suffering from lower long-term rates compared to short-term financing costs, fell by 2.7%.