By Yasin Ebrahim
Investing.com – The Dow drifted lower on Tuesday as the rally in tech stocks cooled amid concerns that some states are lifting restrictions too soon.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.40%, or 97 points, the S&P 500 fell 0.51%, while the Nasdaq Composite was flat.
Investor optimism over the reopening of the economy remained cautious as White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci told Congress that the virus is not under control yet and raised concerns that some states are reopening businesses too soon, which may lead to further Covid-19 outbreaks.
The warning comes as data from the White House coronavirus task force showed a spike in new infections in the past week, NBC reported, citing eaked data.
As the toll of U.S. coronavirus deaths top 82,000, with as many as 1.4 million infected, investor focus on drugmakers' efforts to find Covid-19 therapies and vaccines has intensified.
Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ:GILD) and Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA), the front runners in the race to find Covid-19 treatments, gave up some of their gains from a day earlier, keeping a lid on gains in the broader healthcare sector.
Technology, meanwhile, pared gains to trade roughly unchanged, even as the bulk of FAANG stocks held slender gains.
Financials, mostly banks, came under pressure as President Donald Trump exacerbated worries about a negative interest rate environment after calling on the Federal Reserve to deliver deeper interest rate cuts.
Trump has been a vocal critic of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and expressed frustrations that the central bank had upped rates too quickly and subsequently trimmed rates too slowly.
The call on the Fed to more comes as the central bank got its historic corporate bond-buying program underway -- a move, announced last month, to avert a credit crisis.