The major indices spent the entirety of Tuesday in the red, as trade worries weighed on the market. They pushed higher in the afternoon, but then faded into the close, and ended near their lows of the day.
ECONOMIC EVENTS: In the U.S., the NFIB small business optimism index dropped 1.3% to 101.8 in September. The Producer Prices Index headline and core figures both dropped 0.3% in September.
In Fed news, Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell reiterated that the Fed will "act as appropriate" and is not on a "preset course." Powell added that the Fed will start expanding its balance sheet "soon" but stressed this growth will be for "reserve management purposes" and "should in no way be confused with the large scale asset purchase programs that analysts deployed after the financial crisis."
In Europe, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and German chancellor Angela Merkel held a call about the proposals he put forward to the EU, after which European Council President Donald Tusk sent a public tweet to Johnson, warning him that "the future of Europe and the UK" was at stake.
TOP NEWS: Just days before high-level trade talks are set to resume in Washington, the U.S. has added 28 Chinese entities to an export blacklist, citing their role in Beijing's repression of Muslim minorities in northwest China, according to various media reports. Video-surveillance and facial-recognition giants Hikvision, Megvii Technology and SenseTime Group have been added to the "entity list" alongside Huawei, which was added in May. Huawei suppliers include Micron Technology (MU) and Western Digital (WDC), while makers of optical components, including Oclaro (OCLR), Acacia Communications (ACIA), NeoPhotonics (NPTN), and Lumentum (LITE), have previously reacted negatively to headlines regarding U.S. enforcement actions and allegations against China's Huawei. Shares of Ambarella (AMBA), which has two of its customers on the list, dropped 9.5% following the news.
Shares of Boeing (BA) were in focus after The Wall Street Journal reported that the European Union Aviation Safety Agency recently told senior U.S. regulators it wasn't satisfied that FAA and Boeing officials had adequately demonstrated the safety of reconfigured MAX flight-control computers. Also, a union of Southwest Airlines (LUV) pilots announced last night that it has filed a lawsuit against Boeing for "deliberately misleading the organization and its pilots about the 737 MAX aircraft." Separately, Boeing reported today that it has has delivered 302 aircraft year-to-date, including 113 787 aircraft.
Sony's (SNE) Interactive Entertainment unit confirmed via a blog post that the company's next-generation game console will be called PlayStation 5 and will be launching in time for Holiday 2020.
In IPO news, Recode reported that food-delivery startup Postmates has recently told its IPO advisers that it is delaying its IPO due to market conditions. High-profile startups like Lyft (LYFT), Uber (UBER), Slack (WORK) and Peloton (PTON) have largely bombed on the stock market since going public this year, while WeWork (WE) recently pulled its IPO, the report noted.
MAJOR MOVERS: Among the noteworthy gainers was Allegiance Bancshares (ABTX), which rose 7.2% after being named to join the S&P 600. Also higher was Domino's Pizza (DPZ), which gained 4.5% after reporting quarterly results.
Among the notable losers was Qiagen (QGEN), which fell 20.7% after announcing the departure of CEO Peer Schatz, forming a new partnership with Illumina (ILMN), and providing preliminary earnings per share results for the third quarter. Also lower was Puma Biotechnology (PBYI), which declined almost 22% after Goldman Sachs analyst Paul Choi downgraded the stock to Sell from Neutral and cut his price target on the shares to $8 from $24.
INDEXES: The Dow fell 313.98, or 1.19%, to 26,164.04, the Nasdaq lost 132.52, or 1.67%, to 7,823.78, and the S&P 500 declined 45.73, or 1.56%, to 2,893.06.
