US stocks slump to the lows of the day

The early optimism in US stock markets has faded.

The S&P 500 is down 35 points, or 0.6% with all the selling coming in the past hour. Particularly notable are the declines in Tesla (6.8%) and Apple (-3.1%). Tesla had poor sales numbers while Apple is discounting prices in China.

I don’t think that tells the whole story with either as there is an incentive in the US tax system to wait until after the turn of the year to recognize big capital gains. That pushes the tax burden out an additional year and we saw something similar last year as Apple sank to $180 from $192 at the close of 2022.

Normally, it doesn’t take long for this kind of selling to fizzle but uncertainty around the new US administration and high valuations could keep the sellers in control.

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.