Wall Street wavers amid mixed earnings, crude slides as trade deadline looms
The S&P 500 was modestly lower while easing tech shares (.SPLRCT), opens new tab dragged the Nasdaq to a steeper loss. The blue-chip Dow held on to nominal gains.
Gold extended its gain in opposition to the softening dollar and U.S. Treasury yields eased for the third straight session.
"(Investors are) looking for additional catalysts and you're seeing some cautious comments coming out of companies," said Robert Pavlik, senior portfolio manager at Dakota Wealth in Fairfield, Connecticut. "They're hearing mixed guidance when it comes to all this uncertainty revolving around tariffs and the direction things are heading in."
Second-quarter earnings season has hit full-stride, with nearly one-fifth of the companies in the S&P 500 having reported. Of those, 79% have beaten analyst expectations, according to LSEG data.
Analysts now expect year-on-year S&P 500 earnings growth of 7.0%, on aggregate, a sizable improvement over the 5.8% growth predicted as of July 1, per LSEG.
Still, the effects of trade war have begun seeping into corporate results. General Motors' GM.N, opens new tab second-quarter core profit slid by 32% as steep tariff costs took a $1.1 billion bite from its bottom line.
Prospects of a U.S.-European Union trade deal appeared to be fading as Washington's August 1 deadline loomed, prompting EU members to ramp up possible "anti-coercion" retaliatory measures.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Tuesday he would meet with his Chinese counterpart to discuss delaying the trade talks deadline again, as the world's two largest economies wrestle with the flow of technology and rare earth materials.
"Trump seems to desperately want to make deals if they just come to the table and negotiate," said Pavlik, adding that U.S. trading partners "seem to resent being forced into a deal so they're pushing back."
"And it's all been sort of artificially been created." Pavlik added. "The President could have addressed this differently and gotten a much smoother outcome, but he works like a bull in a China shop."
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI), opens new tab rose 38.96 points, or 0.09%, to 44,362.03, the S&P 500 (.SPX), opens new tab fell 6.29 points, or 0.10%, to 6,299.49 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC), opens new tab fell 89.48 points, or 0.43%, to 20,883.37.
MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe (.MIWD00000PUS), opens new tab fell 0.80 points, or 0.08%, to 928.84.
The pan-European STOXX 600 (.STOXX), opens new tab index fell 0.47%, while Europe's broad FTSEurofirst 300 index (.FTEU3), opens new tab fell 9.88 points, or 0.47%
Emerging market stocks (.MSCIEF), opens new tab fell 3.99 points, or 0.32%, to 1,249.49. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS), opens new tab closed lower by 0.24%, to 657.10, while Japan's Nikkei (.N225), opens new tab fell 44.19 points, or 0.11%, to 39,774.92.
The dollar continued to edge lower amid a subdued currency market as investors awaited any sign of progress in trade talks ahead of the August 1 deadline.
The dollar index , which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies including the yen and the euro, fell 0.28% to 97.57, with the euro up 0.22% at $1.1722.
Bitcoin resumed its upward climb.
In cryptocurrencies, bitcoin gained 1.82% to $119,134.52. Ethereum declined 1.4% to $3,706.19.
U.S. Treasury yields appeared set to notch a third straight day of declines as the market took a breather on the heels of Monday's rally.
The yield on benchmark U.S. 10-year notes fell 3.2 basis points to 4.338%, from 4.37% late on Monday.
The 30-year bond yield fell 3.5 basis points to 4.902% from 4.937% late on Monday.
The 2-year note yield, which typically moves in step with interest rate expectations for the Federal Reserve, fell 1.9 basis points to 3.833%, from 3.852% late on Monday.
U.S. crude fell 1.56% to $66.15 a barrel and Brent fell to $68.26 per barrel, down 1.37% on the day.
Spot gold rose 0.9% to $3,425.89 an ounce. U.S. gold futures rose 0.58% to $3,421.70 an ounce.
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