Wall Street's record-breaking, weeklong run ran out of momentum on Tuesday.
- The S&P 500 fell 18.91 points, or 0.3%, to 6,370.86 for its first drop after closing at an all-time high in six successive days.
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 204.57 points, or 0.5%, to 44,632.99.
- The Nasdaq composite fell 80.29 points, or 0.4%, from its own record to 21,098.29.
SoFi Technologies climbed 6.6%, but Merck dropped 1.7% and UPS sank 10.6% following a torrent of profit reports from big US companies, the
AP reports. They're among the hundreds of companies telling investors this week how much they made during the spring, including nearly a third of the stocks in the S&P 500.
This week could prove pivotal in determining whether the US stock market can keep climbing to more records or succumb to criticism that it's grown too expensive following its dramatic leap in recent months. One way companies can tamp down such criticism is to deliver solid growth in profits. That helped Cadence Design Systems, whose stock came into the day with a gain of 11.1% for the year so far. The computational software company said it's continuing to benefit from the flood of investment into the artificial-intelligence industry, and it raised its forecast for revenue growth this year. Its stock rallied 9.7%.
But investors have also been punishing stocks of companies that have failed to meet expectations so far this reporting season. UnitedHealth Group dropped 7.5% after reporting a profit for the spring that fell short of analysts' expectations. It also gave a forecast for profit over all of 2025 that investors found disappointing. The health care giant said it expected to earn at least $16 per share, when analysts were looking for something close to $20, according to FactSet. Shares of Novo Nordisk that trade in the United States tumbled 21.8% after the Danish company cut its forecast for sales growth this year, in part because of lower expectations for its Wegovy weight-loss drug amid high competition. It also named a new chief executive officer.
story continues below
Wall Street had a relatively muted reaction after China's top trade official said that China and the United States have agreed to work on extending a deadline for new tariffs on each other. Trade officials from the world's two largest economies had been talking in Stockholm ahead of an Aug. 12 deadline, after which much higher tariffs are scheduled to resume. US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, though, said that US officials would head back to Washington and "talk to the president about whether that's something that he wants to do," meaning an extension in the pause in tariffs.
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
