Investing.com - The market selloff continued in midday trading on Monday as the Dow dropped almost 500 points amid concerns over global growth and trade tensions between the U.S. and China.
The S&P 500 lost 47 points, or 1.8%, as of 11:24 AM ET (16:24 GMT), while the Dow decreased 482 points, or 2%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 87 points, or 1.2%.
Ongoing trade tensions increased after Chinese officials summoned the U.S. ambassador to Beijing on Sunday to protest the arrest of the chief financial officer of Chinese electronics giant Huawei, Meng Wanzhou, in Canada.
Despite a trade truce being declared earlier in the month, the U.S. has taken a hard stance, with a March 1 "hard deadline" to come up with a trade deal before tariffs kick in, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said on Sunday.
Nearly every sector was down, lead by declines in the financial and energy sectors. The S&P 500 Financials index fell 2.9% amid expectations that the Federal Reserve won’t increase interest rates as fast next year due to slowing global economic growth.
The S&P 500 Energy index fell 3.2% as crude oil prices sank again.
Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) fell 4% while Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) dipped 2.3% and Visa (NYSE:V) was down 1.5%.
"What you are looking at is drivers. Not a whole lot has changed from last week, but what has changed is the value of equities," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley FBR in New York.
"We don't have a whole lot of catalysts this week. That's why we would pay more attention than not to news from the administration on trade and the Huawei CFO."
Other notable movers include Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), which slumped 2% after Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) said it won an order from China that bans the sale of iPhone models in the country due to patent violations.
Meanwhile, Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) gained 1.4% while Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) was up 0.3% and Barrick Gold (NYSE:ABX) jumped 3.2%.
-- Reuters contributed to this report.