Investing.com - Wall Street stumbled Monday as concerns over trade war tensions outweighed news that UK Prime Minister Theresa May is withdrawing a Parliamentary vote on a Brexit draft agreement.
The S&P 500 lost 15 points, or 0.60%, as of 9:58 AM ET (14:58 GMT), while the Dow decreased 178 points, or 0.73%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 9 points, or 0.14%.
May announced on Monday that she is planning to withdraw a planned vote on a draft Brexit agreement and instead plans to go back to Brussels to renegotiate a better deal.
Investor mood was dampened on concern of U.S.-Sino relations 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. U.S. officials are investigating her role in the company's operations in Iran.
The arrest of Meng has added to tensions between the two biggest economic countries in the world. U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed on Dec. 1 to a 90-day truce on trade tariffs.
Technology stocks were higher, with Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) gaining 3% and Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) up 1.5%. Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) jumped 1.6% and IBM (NYSE:IBM) inched up 0.8%.
Meanwhile. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) fell 1.5% 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. Financial stocks were also in the red, with Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) down 2.4% and Citigroup (NYSE:C) slipping 1.7%.
In commodities, gold futures fell 0.10% to $1,251.40 a troy ounce and crude oil slumped 2% to $51.48 a barrel. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, gained 0.30% to 96.76.