The three major indexes on the New York stock market opened lower as technology stocks faced heavy selling.
At 9:33 a.m. on the 23rd (local time), on the New York Stock Exchange, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 345.52 points, or 0.67%, from the previous session to 51,367.19. The Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500 fell 114.38 points, or 1.53%, to 7,358.41, and the Nasdaq composite fell 572.09 points, or 2.19%, to 25,594.51.
Heavy selling is evident, centered on technology stocks. Micron, ahead of its earnings release, fell 11.60%, and SanDisk and Seagate Technology fell 12.82% and 8.34%, respectively. Intel and AMD fell 6.63% and 6.98%, respectively, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 7.04%.
Joe Mazzola, chief trading strategist at Charles Schwab, said, "A large-scale sell-off in technology stocks that started in Asia has spread to Wall Street," and noted, "Semiconductor stocks, including Micron, plunged in tandem with the sharp drop in Korean semiconductor stocks." He added, "Semiconductors were simply where the damage was most severe; the early-session weakness was not limited to semiconductor stocks," and said, "Most technology names, including Apple and Nvidia, fell amid risk-off trading."
Mazzola said, "There is no clear trigger other than the weakness in the Korean market," but noted, "Caution ahead of Micron's earnings release scheduled for the 24th may have played a role." He added, "If Micron's results disappoint, this steep decline could continue, but if the results are decent, buying could flow back into semiconductor stocks."
Movie theater chain AMC plunged 29.71% after the company said it signed a deal to sell 95.3 million shares of AMC common stock, worth about $200 million, to certain institutional investors.
European stocks were also weak. The Euro Stoxx 50 was down 1.15% from the previous session at 6,238.73 in transaction. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 and Germany's DAX fell 0.42% and 1.03%, respectively, and France's CAC 40 fell 0.77%.