US STOCKS-Wall St posts 3rd week of declines as tech slide drags on

© Reuters.

(For a live blog on the U.S. stock market, click LIVE/ or
type LIVE/ in a news window.)
* Tesla rises after PT hikes ahead of "Battery Day"
* Indexes: Dow down 0.9%, S&P 500 down 1.1%, Nasdaq down
1.1%

(Updates close with volume, other details)
By Caroline Valetkevitch
Sept 18 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell on Friday as technology
shares sold off for a third day in a row, while all three major
U.S. indexes posted a third straight week of declines.
It was the Nasdaq's first such weekly streak since August
2019, and S&P 500 and Dow's first since early October 2019.
Apple Inc AAPL.O , Microsoft Corp MSFT.O , Amazon.com Inc
AMZN.O and Alphabet Inc. GOOGL.O , which helped to fuel the
market's rally off the March lows, were among the biggest drags
on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq on Friday, while the S&P 500
technology index .SPLRCT fell 1.7%, the biggest weight among
the S&P 500 sectors. Apple was down 3.2%.
"We had a market peak on Sept. 2, and then we had a rapid
decline and a lot of that came in technology and growth stocks
that had done so well," said Tom Martin, senior portfolio
manager at Globalt Investments in Atlanta.
But even though the market has had a sell-off in technology
and growth, "it doesn't mean the (valuation) extremes are fully
worked off," he said.
Friday marked the quarterly expiration of U.S. stock
options, stock index futures and index option contracts, known
as "quadruple witching," bringing increased trading volume at
the market close.
Volume on U.S. exchanges was 14.31 billion shares, the
highest since this year's reconstitution by FTSE Russell of its
indexes in June.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI fell 244.56 points,
or 0.88%, to 27,657.42, the S&P 500 .SPX lost 37.54 points, or
1.12%, to 3,319.47 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped
117.00 points, or 1.07%, to 10,793.28.
The Dow ended just barely lower on the week, while the S&P
500 fell 0.7% and the Nasdaq dropped 0.6% for the week.
Strategists said investors appeared to be continuing a
recent rotation out of high-flying tech-related stocks and into
other sectors.
"It looks to be sentiment driven and, to some extent, it
appears to be rotational to us," said Rob Haworth, senior
investment strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management in Seattle.
"We're not sure this really indicates there's a problem with
economic growth, but rather, it's some profit-taking, some
adjustment and rotation" between sectors, he said. "You're
moving from the biggest weights in the market to the smallest
weights."
The S&P 500 materials .SPLRCM is the best-performing
sector so far this month, while S&P 500 technology is the worst.
Investors kept a close eye on rising coronavirus cases
overseas. European countries from Denmark to Greece announced
new restrictions on Friday to curb surging coronavirus
infections in some of their largest cities, while Britain was
reported to be considering a new national lockdown. Tesla rose 4.4% as two analysts raised their price targets
on the electric carmaker's shares ahead of its highly
anticipated "Battery Day" event next week. Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a
2.02-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.12-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
The S&P 500 posted 13 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the
Nasdaq Composite recorded 67 new highs and 26 new lows.