NEW YORK — U.S. stocks took their biggest loss in three weeks Thursday after a late sell-off. Apple, which is mired in a slump, fell to its lowest price in about two months and dragged the tech sector sharply lower.
Tech stocks, which rose early on thanks to earnings gains from Facebook and PayPal, slumped after billionaire investor Carl Icahn disclosed that he’d sold his stake in Apple. Icahn wasn’t a major shareholder in the tech giant, but his moves are closely watched by many investors.
The Dow Jones industrial average lost 210.79 points, or 1.2 percent, to 17,830.76. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 19.34 points, or 0.9 percent, to 2,075.81. The Nasdaq composite closed lower for the sixth day in a row, losing 57.85 points, or 1.2 percent, to 4,805.29. That index has struggled in part because Apple, the most valuable public company in the world, has fallen 15 percent in two weeks.
Earlier in the day, indexes had wavered between small gains and losses. Investors were surprised the Bank of Japan decided not to take further action to stimulate that nation’s economy, and the yen continued to get stronger against the dollar.
“All they did was delay the inevitable,” said Scott Wren, global equity strategist for Wells Fargo’s Investment Institute. “All these global central banks, they’re going to come out guns blazing” to stimulate their economies.
Meanwhile a handful of stocks moved on deal news. Most of those were in health care. In the largest, medical device-maker Abbott Laboratories said it will buy St. Jude Medical, combining Abbott’s heart devices, heart valve products and infant formula business with St. Jude’s heart failure and heart rhythm device products.
St. Jude rocketed $15.84, or 25.6 percent, to $77.79 while Abbott fell $3.41, or 7.8 percent, to $40.42.
“Companies are on the hunt for ways to increase their profitability,” said Wren, of Wells Fargo. “One way to do that is to buy somebody else.”
That is made easier, he added, by low interest rates on loans and the fact that companies have been slashing expenses for years.
French drugmaker Sanofi went public with an offer to buy cancer drug maker Medivation for $9.3 billion, or $52.50 per share. Medivation, the maker of the prostate cancer medication Xtandi, added $4.12, or 7.9 percent, to $56.17.
Drugmaker AbbVie said it will buy privately held Stemcentrx for $5.8 billion. Stemcentrx is developing a drug that uses stem cells to treat small cell lung cancer. AbbVie stock rose 50 cents to $61.20.
Comcast’s NBCUniversal unit will buy DreamWorks Animation for $3.55 billion. The deal values DreamWorks at $41 a share, and the stock, which jumped 19 percent Wednesday in anticipation of the deal, rose another $7.75, or 24.1 percent, to $39.96.