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Stocks fell on Thursday as a selloff in technology stocks overshadowed a raft of solid earnings reports.
The Dow Jones Industrials doffed 105.02 points to 52,553.62, thanks to a more than 3% advance in UnitedHealth, which easily topped earnings expectations.
Earnings season is off to a strong start this week. Of the 40 S&P 500 companies that have already reported, more than 87% reported positive surprises. The major banks, which are considered a bellwether for economic activity, crushed second quarter earnings expectations earlier in the week.
The S&P 500 index lost 38.52 points to 7,533.88
The NASDAQ Composite was clobbered 387.28 points, or 1.5%, to 25,881.95.
Taiwan Semiconductor declined by 3%, as an increase in its spending forecast overshadowed a better-than-expected second-quarter report.
The company expects capital expenditures to clock in between $60 billion and $64 billion for the year, up from a prior guidance in the range of $52 billion to $56 billion.
Shares of Micron Technology and Advanced Micro Devices were lower by more than 6% each. Broadcom was lower by more than 4%. The U.S.-listed shares of SK Hynix slid more than 11%.
Elsewhere in technology, shares of Alphabet dropped more than 4% as the company has reportedly delayed releasing its most powerful artificial intelligence model known as Gemini 3.5 Pro.
Other “Magnificent Seven” names Meta Platforms, Nvidia and Amazon were also in the red.
The latest raft of economic data continued to show a U.S. consumer holding up in the face of higher pricing pressures.
Jobless claims for the week ending July 11 came in at a seasonally adjusted 208,000, lower than the 218,000 expected by economists polled by Dow Jones. Retail sales met expectations, up 0.2%.
Prices for the 10-year Treasury hiked, lowering yields to 4.57% from Wednesday’s 4.55%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices dropped 54 cents to $79.06 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices dumped $73.40 to $3,978.00 U.S. an ounce.
