Investing.com - Big-name tech stocks were slammed midday, leading a broader market decline.
The Dow was off about 395 points, or 1.5%, at 11:30 AM ET (15:30 GMT), while the S&P 500 fell about 44 points, or 1.5%. The Nasdaq Composite was hardest hit, shedding about 175 points, or 2.26%.
While rising bond yields pressured equities overall, investors also seem to be seizing the opportunity to take risk off the table and techs are taking the brunt of the selling.
Chip stocks were broadly lower, while widely traded stocks like Netflix and Twitter were also sharply in the red.
The S&P Technology Sector index fell about 2.2% and the S&P Communications Services Sector index dropped about 1.7%. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index sank about 3%.
Semiconductor stocks sold off pretty much across the board, with concerns about trade wars affecting sales and programmatic trading hitting the sector as market leaders declined.
High-flyer Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) tumbled about 6%. Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) lost about 2.2%, contributing to the Dow’s big loss.
Other chip stocks struggling included NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA), off about 4.4%, Applied Materials (NASDAQ:AMAT), which slipped about 3.2% and Texas Instruments (NASDAQ:TXN), which was down about 2.8%.
Meanwhile, the FAANG and social media stocks also sold off.
Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) lost about 6.7%, Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) dropped about 3%, Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) slipped about 2%, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) shed about 1.6% and Google parent Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) sank about 2.3%.
Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) tumbled about 7.5% and Snap (NYSE:SNAP) dropped about 4.5%.