Pharmaceutical and biotechnology shares tumbled early today after President-elect Donald Trump signaled that he plans to crack down on runaway drug prices.
US stocks were mostly lower after Trump's comments, which followed controversies in recent months over massive drug price increases by Mylan, Valeant and other companies.
"I'm going to bring down drug prices," Trump told Time magazine. "I don't like what has happened with drug prices." Time has named Trump its "Person of the Year."
Dow member Pfizer dropped 2.4 per cent, Celgene fell 4.2 per cent and Mylan 4.7 per cent. The drug industry had initially rallied after Trump's election November 8 on expectations he would be less aggressive towards drug pricing than his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
About 30 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up a hair at 19,257.85.
The broad-based S&P 500 lost 0.2 percent at 2,209.02, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index fell 0.5 per cent to 5,307.44.
Western Digital surged 5.7 per cent after it lifted its second-quarter forecasts, citing favorable market conditions and a contribution of intellectual property revenue from a cross license with Samsung pertaining to flash storage capacity.
Mastercard gained 0.8 per cent as it announced it was boosting its quarterly dividend by 16 per cent to 22 cents per share and authorized a USD 4 billion share price repurchase plan.
JPMorgan Chase fell 0.1 per cent after it was fined USD 337 million for allegedly rigging the Euribor interest rate benchmark with HSBC and Credit Agricole. JPMorgan denied wrongdoing and said it would fight the charges.
