Wall Street stocks were finished lower on Tuesday, as chip stocks added to recent losses and investors parsed mixed quarterly results from Citigroup and other big US banks.

The PHLX chip index fell 0.2 percent, down for a fifth straight session, after Broadcom CEO Hock Tan on Monday likened some of the investment flow into the sector to "casino gambling."

Micron Technology lost 3.6 percent and Applied Materials dropped almost 7 percent. Broadcom rose 0.7 percent.

Citigroup dipped 5.6 percent and Goldman Sachs lost 0.2 percent after both banks topped profit estimates.

Wells Fargo fell 3.1 percent after its net interest income missed estimates, while JPMorgan Chase ended down 0.9 percent following a rare profit miss.

Apple hit an intraday record high of US$348.15 before closing up 0.1 percent at US$341.27, putting its stock market value at US$4.98 trillion.

Analysts on average see S&P 500 third-quarter earnings surging over 30 percent, fueled largely by AI-related technology companies, according to LSEG data.

Expectations of a strong earnings season have offset worries about the US war with Iran, surging bond yields and inflation related to high oil prices.

"A lot of investors are feeling a sense of relief that markets might start looking at earnings and less at the bond market, less at higher-for-longer oil prices and less at high interest rates," said Jake Dollarhide, CEO of Longbow Asset Management in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The S&P 500 declined 0.02 percent to end the session at 7,805 points.

The Nasdaq declined 0.2 percent to 27,204 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.4 percent to 51,670. (Reuters)



Edited by Cecil Wong