AP – United States (US) stocks tumbled as the ‘Trump bump’ that Wall Street got from last week’s presidential election, along with a cut to interest rates by the Federal Reserve, kept fading.
The S&P 500 dropped 1.3 per cent for its worst day since before Election Day to close out a losing week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 305 points, or 0.7 per cent, and the Nasdaq composite sank 2.2 per cent.
Makers of vaccines helped drag the market down after President-elect Donald Trump said he wants Robert F Kennedy Jr, a prominent anti-vaccine activist, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Moderna tumbled 7.3 per cent, and Pfizer fell 4.7 per cent amid concerns about a possible hit to profits.
Kennedy still needs confirmation from the Senate to get the job, and some analysts are sceptical about his chances.
“However, if Kennedy is confirmed, it is hard to bookend risks for investors as his views are so outside the traditional Republican health policy orthodoxy,” Raymond James analyst Chris Meekins wrote in a research note.
Meekins is a former deputy assistant secretary at the department known as HHS.
“Investors may need to forget everything they thought they knew about Republicans and healthcare,” Meekins said. “Kennedy’s appointment may make it less likely traditional qualified experienced (Republican) staff will agree to join HHS, creating more uncertainty.”
Biotech stocks broadly sank to some of the market’s worst losses, but the sharpest drop in the S&P 500 came from Applied Materials. It fell 9.2 per cent even though it reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected.
