US stocks mostly decline as tech names pull back from highs
Trader Thomas McCauley works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
NEW YORK, United States — Wall Street stocks finished mostly lower on Tuesday. They were dragged down by tech companies retreating from record highs, while a Home Depot earnings report lifted retailers.
The broad-based S&P 500 Index fell 0.6 percent to 6,411.37. The tech-focused Nasdaq Composite Index fell 1.5 percent to 21,314.95.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose a marginal 10.5 points to 44,922.27. It pulled back after hitting a record high on the back of Home Depot’s quarterly report.
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Shares of the home improvement company rose 3.2 percent after slightly missing analyst expectations but maintaining its full-year forecast.
Target, Walmart and Lowes report later in the week. All eyes are on potential impacts on consumers from US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
“The consumer makes up two thirds of the economy and retail earnings give you a good sense of the strength of the consumer,” Adam Sarhan of 50 Park Investments said.
AI chip-maker Nvidia led a slew of tech stocks facing pressure, falling 3.5 percent. Advance Micro Devices dropped 5.4 percent and software provider Palantir slid over nine percent. Microsoft fell 1.4 percent.
Shares of Facebook-parent Meta also fell over two percent. This was after the New York Times reported a major shakeup was forthcoming in its AI division.
“Considerable losses in mega-cap tech names have the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite facing pressure,” according to Briefing.com analysts.
Sarhan said that after hitting all time highs last week, “the market is pulling back as investors digest a very big … move up.”
Fed’s Powell may offer clues on Friday talk
Traders are also anxiously awaiting Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s remarks on Friday at the Jackson Hole financial gathering. There, he may offer clues as to how recent inflation and jobs data impact decision making on rate cuts in September.
Powell is expected to be “cautious” after economic data “has gotten weaker” since his last remarks, said Sarhan.
Traders currently price in an over 80-percent likelihood that the Fed will cut, after resisting intense pressure from Trump and holding rates steady since last December.
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“Just about everybody is saying that the Fed should cut rates … so now it’s just a matter of when,” added Sarhan.
Policymakers have been cautiously monitoring the effects of Trump’s wide-ranging tariffs on the world’s biggest economy.
Tuesday’s decline followed a tepid session a day earlier, when stocks ended mostly flat. Traders awaited the outcome of high-level talks at the White House on the Ukraine-Russia war.
