Stocks end lower on Wall Street as tech weighs down Nasdaq

Stocks closed lower on Wall Street on Monday, as a slide in technology companies offset gains elsewhere in the market.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 fell 0.4% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite dropped 1.1%. The Dow Jones industrial average held up better, ending down just 0.1%.

The Dow benefited from a 6.3% gain in Disney, which soared after news late Sunday that the entertainment giant had replaced Chief Executive Bob Chapek with his predecessor, Bob Iger.

Tesla tumbled 6.8% for the biggest drop among S&P 500 stocks and briefly slumped to an intraday low of $167.54, the lowest point in two years. The electric-car maker’s shares are down more than 50% this year on investor fear that CEO Elon Musk will be distracted by his $44-billion purchase of Twitter.

The market pullback adds to stock indexes’ losses from last week and followed news overnight from China, which announced its first new death from COVID-19 in nearly half a year as strict new measures are imposed in Beijing and across the country to ward against new outbreaks. China’s ongoing strict lockdown policies have been crimping economic growth in the world’s second-largest economy and stressing businesses.

“Some of the negativity that we’ve seen today is largely due to the idea that demand coming out of China maybe won’t be as strong as people expected,” said Liz Young, head of investment strategy at SoFi.

Casino operator Wynn Resorts, which has a large footprint in China, fell 2.2%. Las Vegas Sands slid 2.9%.

All told, the S&P 500 fell 15.40 points to 3,949.94. The Nasdaq slid 121.55 points to 11,024.51. The Dow slipped 45.41 points to 33,700.28.

Technology stocks were the biggest drag on the benchmark S&P 500. Apple slid 2.2% and Visa fell 2.1%.

Retailers and other companies that rely on consumer spending also weighed down the index, as did energy stocks, which followed a 0.4% dip in the price of U.S. crude oil. Target fell 3% and Exxon Mobil dropped 1.4%.

Household goods makers, banks and companies in other sectors kept the losses in check. PepsiCo gained 1.9% and Capital One Financial rose 2.4%.

Smaller-company stocks lost ground. The Russell 2000 index fell 10.59 points, or 0.6%, to 1,839.14.

European markets mostly fell, while Asian markets closed lower.