US STOCKS-Indexes drop more than 1% as tech sell-off continues

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* Tesla rises after PT hikes ahead of "Battery Day"
* Oracle slips as Trump to block U.S. downloads of TikTok
* Indexes down: Dow 1.1%, S&P 500 1.4%, Nasdaq 1.5%

(New throughout, updates prices, market activity and comments
to late afternoon)
By Caroline Valetkevitch
Sept 18 (Reuters) - Major U.S. stock indexes were down more
than 1% in afternoon trading as technology shares sold off again
and investors kept worrying about rising coronavirus cases.
Apple Inc AAPL.O , Microsoft Corp MSFT.O , Amazon.com Inc
AMZN.O and Alphabet Inc GOOGL.O were among the biggest drags
on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq, while the S&P 500 technology index
.SPLRCT , was on track for a third day of losses.
Volatility has the potential to be higher, with Friday
marking the quarterly expiration of U.S. stock options, stock
index futures and index option contracts, known as "quadruple
witching." The expirations often bring about increased trading
volume at the market close and can feed into market volatility.
Strategists said investors appeared to be continuing a
recent rotation out of high-flying tech-related stocks and into
other areas of stocks.
"It looks to be sentiment driven and, to some extent, it
appears to be rotational to us," said Rob Haworth, senior
investment strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management in Seattle.
"We're not sure this really indicates there's a problem with
economic growth, but rather, it's some profit-taking, some
adjustment and rotation" between sectors, he said. "You're
moving from the biggest weights in the market to the smallest
weights."
The S&P materials .SPLRCM is the best-performing sector so
far this month, while heavily weighted S&P technology is the
worst.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI fell 293.27 points,
or 1.05%, to 27,608.71, the S&P 500 .SPX lost 45.21 points, or
1.35%, to 3,311.8 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped
164.73 points, or 1.51%, to 10,745.55.
European countries from Denmark to Greece announced new
restrictions on Friday to curb surging coronavirus infections in
some of their largest cities, while Britain was reported to be
considering a new national lockdown. Wall Street's three main indexes bounced earlier this week
as investors bet on a loose monetary policy by the Federal
Reserve.
Tesla rose 3.6% as two analysts raised their price targets
on the electric carmaker's shares ahead of its highly
anticipated "Battery Day" event next week. Oracle Corp ORCL.N dipped 0.6% after Reuters reported the
U.S. Commerce Department plans to issue an order on Friday that
will bar people in the United States from downloading
Chinese-owned messaging app WeChat and video-sharing app TikTok
starting on Sept. 20.
The owner of the widely popular TikTok app, ByteDance, is in
talks with Oracle and others to create a new company, TikTok
Global.
On a bright note, a survey showed U.S. consumer sentiment
improved in early September. Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a
2.55-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.55-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
The S&P 500 posted 11 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the
Nasdaq Composite recorded 57 new highs and 18 new lows.