Wall Street extends slide as industrials underperfom on latest trade headlines

Coming back from the long weekend, major equity indexes in the United States opened the day in the negative territory and continued to push lower as the latest headlines surrounding the U.S. - China trade conflict weighed on the market sentiment that was already sour at the opening bell.

Yesterday's data from China, which showed that the economy expanded by its slowest pace in nearly 30 years in 2018, caused investors to stay away from risk-sensitive assets since the start of the week. Furthermore, the record-long U.S. government shutdown at its 32nd day escalates fears over the potential negative impacts on the U.S. economy. In fact, the CBOE Volatility Index, Wall Street's fear gauge, is up nearly 18% on the day to reflect the dismal mood.

Earlier in the day, several news outlets reported that the Trump administration has cancelled a high-level meeting with Chinese officials that was scheduled to take place at the end of the month amid a disagreement regarding technology transfer to Chinese companies. The trade-sensitive S&P 500 Industrials Index reacted negatively to this development and was last seen losing 2.3% on the day. Additionally, the S&P 500 Communication Services and the S&P 500 Technology indexes, which are sensitive to changes in the risk perception, were erasing 2.27% and 2.08%, respectively.

As of writing, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1.53% on the day, the S&P 500 was dropping 1.7%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was losing 2.3%.