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Investing.com — U.S. stocks opened sharply lower on Monday, with investors dumping cyclical stocks in particular after a brief and heady run of outperformance in the latter half of May.
Reports of fresh outbreaks of Covid-19 in Beijing and Tokyo further inflamed nerves at a time when a number of U.S. states have also witnessed rising numbers of new cases. The drip-feed of such news has raised fears of a second wave of infections.
By 9:35 AM ET (1335 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 654 points, or 2.6%, at 24,951 points. The S&P 500 was down 2.0% and the Nasdaq Composite was down 1.4%, regaining its more familiar role as the best performing of the three indices as investors sought safety in those companies with the most reliable growth prospects in the post-Coronavirus world.
Such stocks included children’s media company Genius Brands (NASDAQ:GNUS), whose stock rose 7.9% after the company announced that Arnold Schwarzenegger, the star of the Terminator series of movies and subsequently Governor of California, had agreed to become a significant investor. Schwarzenegger will accept warrants on Genius Brands stock in return for his role starring in and producing the company’s cartoons.
They also included biotech company Shopify Inc (NYSE:SHOP) stock, which rose 5.1% after it announced a strategic partnership with Walmart (NYSE:WMT) under which the big box retailer will add some 1,200 of Shopify’s sellers to its own e-commerce marketplace. Shopify stock has now roughly doubled this year.
