US stocks slammed during opening hour of trade

Major US equity indices built on overnight losses and opened lower for the second consecutive day on Tuesday. 

In what could be a repeat of Monday's price-action, surging US Treasury bond yields along with a selloff in healthcare sector was seen exerting downward pressure during the opening hour of trade. 

Shares of healthcare companies tumbled across the board after Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan said they plan to form a joint venture in order to lower healthcare costs for their US employees.

Moreover, the recent pace of jump in the US bond yields, implying a rise in borrowing costs, was further hurting the sentiment as its makes less attractive to invest in equities, especially when the 2-year US Treasury bill can provide an equivalent dividend as the S&P 500 Index.

With corporate earnings continue to pour in, investors look forward to the US President Donald Trump's first official State of the Union address and the beginning of a two-day FOMC policy meeting. 

Meanwhile, the slump comes in tandem with a sharp spike in the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), referred as the fear index, to its highest level since Aug. 18, 2017, clearly indicates that investors now expect volatility to accelerate in the near-future. 

At the time of writing this report, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down nearly 300-points to 26,155 and the broader S&P 500 Index lost around 30-points to 2,825. Meanwhile, tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index fell over 75-points and slipped below the 7,400 round figure mark.