Investing.com - Wall Street opened lower on Thursday after a one-day hiatus as the arrest of a top executive at Chines company Huawei Technologies sparked worry over Sino-U.S. trade tensions.
The S&P 500 fell 45 points, or 1.69%, to 2,654.53 as of 9:30 AM ET (14:30 GMT), while the Dow decreased 417 points, or 1.67%, to 24,609.65 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite slipped 135 points, or 1.90%, to 7,022.75.
Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer at the Chinese smartphone company Huawei was arrested in Canada on an an extradition request by the U.S. The U.S. has been investigating whether or not she violated sanctions against Iran.
The arrest happened just one week after President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping agreed to a 90-day trade truce. Investors fear the arrest could derail any potential trade talks between the two countries.
"In general, we all have the same questions we did on Tuesday," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley FBR in New York. "The news on Huawei throws another level of uncertainty on our ability to actually come to some agreement with China."
Market sentiment was also dampened by disappointing ADP (NASDAQ:ADP) payrolls data and higher than expected jobless claims.
Technology suppliers were among the hardest hit, with Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) down 1.36%, while semiconductor company Micron (NASDAQ:MU) slumped 4% and Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) fell 0.86%. Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) slipped 2%, while Boeing (NYSE:BA) decreased 3%. Kroger (NYSE:KR) inched down 0.24% after the supermarket chain's same-store sales for the quarter missed estimates.
Meanwhile, Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) dipped 0.60% after news that the automaker’s Chinese factory is starting production in the second half of 2019.
In commodities, gold futures rose 0.45% to $1,248.20 a troy ounce and crude oil decreased 1.85% to $51.91 a barrel. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, lost 0.38% to 96.64.
-- Reuters contributed to this report