Stocks fall as tech takes a beating

Traders
work near the end of the day on the floor of the New York Stock
Exchange in New York
Thomson
Reuters

Stocks were mostly lower Wednesday, with the Nasdaq Composite
dropping more than 1%, as Congress questioned executives from
Twitter and Facebook. The dollar fell,
and Treasury yields remained largely unchanged.

Here’s the scoreboard:

Dow Jones industrial
average: 
25,975.67
 
+23.19 (+0.089%)

S&P
500: 2,886.87 −9.85 (-0.34%)

Nasdaq
Composite: 

7,995.17
 
−96.07 (-1.19%)

1. Executives from Twitter and Facebook testified before
   Congress. In back-to-back House and
   Senate hearings, lawmakers
   questioned Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg
   and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey about
   political content and how the companies are preparing to combat
   foreign-meddling threats ahead of midterms. The hearings
   
   sent tech stocks lower. 
2. The US trade deficit
   jumped to a five-month high. The gap with
   China hit a record peak, just before the Trump administration
   is expected to announce it will enact additional tariffs on $200 billion
   worth of Chinese products. The trade deficit has
   been a main source of frustration for President Donald Trump,
   who sees it as a sign of economic weakness. 
3. NAFTA negotiations between the US and Canada
   drag on. As part of last-ditch efforts to
   modernize the 1994 agreement, high-level trade officials met in
   Washington to discuss ongoing issues such as tariffs on metal
   and dairy products. Last week,
   Trump threatened to hit Canada with duties on auto imports
   and to exclude the country from a trade agreement with Mexico.

And a look at the upcoming economic calendar:

• Employment and wage numbers are out in the US and Canada.
• China releases trade balance data.