The S&P 500 index was on track for a fourth day of losses Tuesday as stocks fell driven by weakness in the semiconductor sector and by anxieties about looming U.S. inflation data that could scuttle the summer rally. What’s happening
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
-0.23%
was down 118 points, or 0.4%, to 32,715.
The S&P 500
SPX,
-0.51%
was off 26 points, or 0.6%, at 4,113.
The Nasdaq Composite
COMP,
-1.25%
was off 180 points, or 1.4%, at 12,466.
On Monday, the Dow eked out a gain of 0.1%, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite each lost 0.1% after an opening rally fizzled. The Nasdaq Composite is up 18.8% from its 2022 low touched in mid-June, but remains down 19.2% for the year to date.
What’s driving markets Stocks fell as a sales warning from semiconductor stalwart Nvidia Corp
NVDA,
-4.04%
rattled chip stocks even as President Joseph Biden signed the bipartisan Chips and Science Act into law. Meanwhile, anxieties ahead of inflation reports due out Wednesday and Thursday helped to put the market’s recent rally on pause. See: Nvidia stock tumbles after company says revenue fell way shy of expectations “There’s a lot of nervousness around the inflation reports coming out tomorrow and Thursday,” said Paul Nolte, a portfolio manager at Kingsview Investment Management. “And continued weakness in the chips sector, which has historically been seen as a market-leading sector, is also helping to hold stocks back.” Hopes that inflation may have peaked, allowing the Federal Reserve to pivot toward a less aggressive pace of monetary tightening, have helped the S&P 500 index bounce nearly 13% from its 2022 low reached in mid-June, but many analysts and several senior Fed officials have warned that hopes for a pivot might be premature. See: U.S. consumers likely got some relief from sizzling price increases in July but Fed won’t feel any better See also: Don’t be fooled by a drop in U.S. headline inflation. Markets will be attuned to another figure on Wednesday. To be sure, economists expect a dip in energy prices will help headline year-over-year consumer price index for July fall from the multidecade high of 9.1% to 8.7%, according to economists polled by FactSet. A drop Monday in the New York Fed’s measure of consumer inflation expectations was taken as a positive sign, but strong wage growth data in Friday’s July jobs report and a large rise in unit labor costs in data released Tuesday were a source of unease, analysts said. “A hotter-than-anticipated CPI report will pressure markets this week. An in-line report could be taken in stride as investors have priced in a …