Tesla And Amazon Drag Down Nasdaq

Amazon fell 4.4 percent following a media report saying President Donald Trump dislikes the company and wanted to make the online retail giant to pay higher taxes.

The White House said no policies concerning Amazon were currently in the works but this did little to lift the company's share price.

Facebook scraped out a 0.5 percent gain after days of heavy losses but the continued woes for Silicon Valley giants have weighed on investor sentiment for the sector that buoyed markets through much of the 2017 rally.

"The big question on the markets right now is how much regulation we will see on the tech sector," said Quincy Krosby of Prudential.

Tesla Motors, another Nasdaq player, tumbled 7.7 percent after the ratings agency Moody's downgraded its debt grade to junk status on a production shortfall and negative cash flow. That came on top of the most recent crash involving a Tesla likely to have been using Autopilot. (AFP)