Dow drops nearly 700 points, Nasdaq tumbles 3% in tech-driven sell-off: Live updates

Stocks fell sharply on Wednesday as a stark warning from Nvidia roiled global tech and concerns from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell about the economic impact of tariffs raised alarm among skittish investors.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 699.57 points, or 1.73%, closing at 39,669.39. The S&P 500 dropped 2.24% to end at 5,275.70, led down by the information technology sector. The Nasdaq Composite pulled back 3.07% to close at 16,307.16. The tech-heavy index ended the day about 19% off its closing high, sliding closer to bear market territory.

Shares of Nvidia sank 6.9% after the chip giant said it will post a $5.5 billion quarterly charge related to exporting its H20 graphics processing units to China and other nations. The company said in a filing that the U.S. government required a license to send chips from the U.S. to China.

The stock was also under pressure after The New York Times reported that President Donald Trump’s administration was taking steps to crack down on Chinese startup DeepSeek, to which Nvidia provides chips.

Other chipmakers followed Nvidia lower, with the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) down more than 4%. AMD fell 7.4%, while Micron Technology slid 2.4%. Adding to the broader chip decline was a disappointing earnings report from ASML, whose U.S.-listed shares dropped 7%.

“The S&P 500 is just much more of a technology-driven index than it has been in the past,” said Zachary Hill, head of portfolio management at Horizon Investments. “It has a disproportionate impact, both to the upside and downside, as we’ve seen. We saw it last week, and now we’re seeing it reverse.”

Stocks slid to session lows in afternoon trading after Fed Chair Powell said Trump’s tariffs could pose a challenge for the central bank. Powell said during a Q-and-A session that levies could drive up inflation in the near term and are “likely to move us further away from our goals.”

“We may find ourselves in the challenging scenario in which our dual-mandate goals are in tension,” Powell said in prepared remarks before the Economic Club of Chicago. “If that were to occur, we would consider how far the economy is from each goal, and the potentially different time horizons over which those respective gaps would be anticipated to close.”

Financial markets have been rattled since Trump announced levies on many countries earlier this month. While some of those duties were put on hold for 90 days last week, China was excluded from that delay. Trump announced an exemption on tariffs against smartphone and PC imports over the weekend, though he later hinted that this was only temporary.

Since the Trump administration first announced its “reciprocal” tariffs on April 2, the S&P 500 has slid roughly 7% and the Nasdaq Composite has dropped 7.4%. The Dow has lost about 6%.