US stocks down on tech caution, while government shutdown ends

Wall Street's major indices slipped early Thursday as investor caution with tech stocks lingered, and after President Donald Trump signed a bill to end the longest government shutdown in US history.

Soon after trading began, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 0.2% to 48,144.20, while the broad-based S&P 500 Index lost 0.8% to 6,797.63.

The tech-focused Nasdaq Composite Index tumbled 1.4% to 23,091.48.

Late Wednesday, Trump inked a bill to end a 43-day shutdown that paralysed Washington and left hundreds of thousands of workers unpaid -- while Republicans and Democrats each blamed the other party for the impasse.

The freeze had also halted government economic data releases, temporarily depriving policymakers and businesses of key reports used to gauge the health of the world's biggest economy.

"The government shutdown being over is nice," said Sam Stovall of CFRA.

But investors will "continue to focus on the near-term rotation out of the growth-oriented sectors and into the more value-oriented areas," he told AFP.

Shift

In other words, investors might shift away from mega cap tech and artificial intelligence stocks for a while, gravitating instead towards blue chip names.

They feel like tech and AI stocks might have "gone too far, too fast," Stovall added.

Investors will also monitor the resumption of data releases from the US government, to assess if the Federal Reserve is likely to continue cutting interest rates at its December policy meeting.

Among individual companies, shares in the Walt Disney Company fell by 7.9 percent as it reported quarterly earnings that missed expectations.