The tech-heavy Nasdaq, however, climbed on a boost from sharp gains in Tesla Inc and Baidu Inc.

At 01:32 p.m. ET the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 172.61 points, or 0.54%, to 30,868.52, the S&P 500 lost 7.19 points, or 0.19%, to 3,796.60, and the Nasdaq Composite gained 27.47 points, or 0.21%, to 13,094.97.

(Reporting by Medha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)