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| The Dow Jones industrial average fell 328 points Monday amid a report the United States plans to restrict firms where Chinese ownership is at least 25 percent from purchasing "industrially significant technology." Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo |
By Daniel Uria, UPI
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 300 points Monday after reports President Donald Trump plans to impose restrictions on Chinese tech investments.
The Dow was down 328 points or 1.33 percent to 24,252 at the end of trading Monday, after The Wall Street Journal on Sunday reported the U.S. Treasury is devising new policy that would prevent firms where Chinese ownership is at least 25 percent from purchasing "industrially significant technology."
The index rebounded slightly before closing when White House trade adviser Peter Navarro referred to the stock selloff as an overreaction after being down by up to 500 points.
"There's no plans to impose investment restrictions on any countries that are interfering in any way with our country. This is not the plan," Navarro said. "So this whole idea that somehow there's gonna be investment restrictions to the world, please, discount that."
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also referred to reports by The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg about investment restrictions specific to China as "fake news" in a tweet Monday.
"The leaker either doesn't exist or know the subject very well," he said. "Statement will be out not specific to China, but to all countries that are trying to steal our technology."
The S&P 500 index also fell 1.4 percent, while the Nasdaq composite dropped 2.1 percent, as Netflix fell 6 percent, and Twitter and Amazon both lost more than 3 percent.
Major chip makers including Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices each fell more than 4 percent following the reports.
Harley-Davidson stock also fell about 6 percent after the company announced plans to move production of its motorcycles headed for European Union customers outside the United States to avoid tariffs the EU imposed on U.S.-made motorcycles.
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