Wall Street today: US stocks fall on tariffs war worries, Nvidia & Tesla slip over 5%

US stocks edged lower on Wednesday on a selloff in big tech shares, with concern about the economic impact of a tariffs war.

A warning from the Congressional Budget Office that the Treasury risks a payment default in August also weighed on sentiments.

Separately, a report said US President Donald Trump is readying an announcement on auto levies as soon as Wednesday.

As of 12:36 PM EDT, the S&P 500 was 0.80 per cent lower, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.08 per cent, and the Nasdaq Composite fell 1. 56 per cent.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.34 per cent from 4.31 per cent late on Tuesday.

Gainers and losers

Among megacap stocks. Nvidia stock fell 5.36 per cent, Tesla dropped 5.01 per cent, Alphabet lost 1.78 per cent, and Apple shed 0.16 per cent.

GameStop shares soared 13.1 per cent after the video-game retailer reported better quarterly results.

Cintas stock jumped 8.1 per cent after the company reported stronger quarterly profit.

Dollar Tree stock gained 5.3 per cent after the retail chain said it is nearing a sale of its Family Dollar business to a consortium of private equity investors for about $1 billion.

Cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrencies declined on Wednesday, with Bitcoin falling 1.5 per cent to $86,588.46 and Ether losing 2.6 per cent to $2,011.31.

Bullion

Gold prices fell on Wednesday as the US dollar and bond yields climbed.

Spot gold was down 0.1 per cent at $3,015.5 an ounce by 11:08 AM ET (1508 GMT). US gold futures fell 0.1 per cent to $3,022.10.

Spot silver fell 0.2 per cent to $33.69 an ounce, while platinum was steady at $976.70. Palladium rose 2 per cent to $971.50.

Crude oil

Oil prices edged higher on Wednesday, buoyed by data showing US crude oil and fuel inventories fell last week.

Brent crude futures gained 88 cents, or 1.21 per cent, to $73.90 a barrel by 10:42 AM ET (1442 GMT). US West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose 94 cents, or 1.36 per cent, to $69.94 a barrel.

US crude inventories fell by 3.3 million barrels to 433.6 million barrels in the week ended March 21, the US Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday.