Wall Street Falls On Tax, Spending Fears

US stocks tumbled on Tuesday as concerns about the cost of infrastructure spending and potential tax increases to pay for US President Joe Biden's US$1.9 trillion relief bill weighed on investors who also fear further downside in the market.

Remarks by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen that the US economy remains in crisis from the pandemic as she defended developing plans for future tax increases to pay for the new public investments put investors on alert.

Yellen spoke at a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee where Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell also addressed the committee.

Talk of the government's infrastructure plans unnerved investors who are concerned the stock market is trading at elevated valuations, said Rick Meckler, partner at Cherry Lane Investments in New Vernon, New Jersey.

"There's a little bit of concern of getting out ahead of a potential selloff that could be on the horizon," Meckler said. "Any feeling that it could be on the horizon is causing people to pull the trigger pretty quick on these down moves."

Stocks had been trading near break-even in seesaw trade before turning sharply lower about 45 minutes before the close.

Powell told US lawmakers that a coming round of post-pandemic price hikes will not fuel a destructive breakout of persistent inflation – fears that had sparked a recent rise in yields and caused technology shares to sell off.

Oil prices that slumped more than 3 percent on worries that new pandemic curbs and slow vaccine rollouts in Europe will slow a recovery in demand helped push the energy sector lower.

Falling yields on 10-year US Treasury notes from a 14-month highs last week have deflated this year's outperformance in the financial and energy sectors.

Conversely, technology-related shares that had recently declined sharply on the rising rate environment had recuperated a bit as yields eased, said Peter Tuz, president of Chase Investment Counsel in Charlottesville, Virginia.

"A lot of these (tech) stocks have seen 10 percent to 20 percent corrections and interest rates have backed off a bit," Tuz said. "The money seems to be going back into them and out of the groups that did extremely well the last three months, specifically financials and energy."

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.94 percent, to 32,423 and the S&P 500 lost 0.76 percent, to 3,911. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.12 percent, to 13,228. (Reuters)