01:50 PM EDT, 03/18/2025 (MT Newswires) -- Tech stocks were lower Tuesday afternoon, with the Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLK) and the SPDR S&P Semiconductor ETF (XSD) each falling about 1.3%.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor index was shedding 1.1%.

In sector news, the US Commerce Department recently informed staff that Chinese AI model DeepSeek is banned on government devices to protect information security, Reuters reported late Monday.

In corporate news, Alphabet's (GOOG) Google ( GOOG ) said it has agreed to buy cloud cybersecurity platform Wiz for $32 billion. Alphabet shares were down 2.6%.