US stocks sold off on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 closing at the lowest level since July 7, amid growing concern over the impending US presidential election and prospects for higher US interest rates.
Stocks pared losses after falling steeply in early afternoon trading as the S&P 500 breached a key technical level.
Real estate .SPLRCR, telecommunications .SPLRCL and utilities .SPLRCU stocks - sectors that tend to perform poorly in rising rate environments - sold off especially sharply.
The S&P 500 .SPX lost 14.43 points, or 0.68 per cent, to 2,111.72, its biggest single-day percentage drop since Oct. 11.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 105.32 points, or 0.58 per cent, to 18,037.1, and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 35.56 points, or 0.69 per cent, to 5,153.58.
The CBOE Volatility Index, a gauge of near-term investor anxiety, jumped to almost a two-month high.
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Investors also pointed to the S&P 500 breaching an important technical level as reason for stocks steepening their slide in afternoon trading.
In earnings news, Pfizer fell 2.0 per cent after the drugmaker trimmed its profit forecast.
Tronc dropped 12.4 per cent after Gannett, the publisher of USA Today, abandoned plans to buy the publisher of the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. Gannett fell 2.3 per cent.
US-listed shares of Valeant Pharmaceuticals soared 33.7 per cent after a report that the drugmaker is in talks to sell its stomach-drug business.
Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 3.21-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 2.29-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
The S&P 500 posted 5 new 52-week highs and 11 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 30 new highs and 152 new lows, according to a news agency report.
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