Dow Falls 180 Points as Bank Earnings Fail to Lift Wall Street

Wall Street ended slightly lower on Tuesday as the first big bank earnings of the season failed to lift the market and memory chip stocks fell for a second straight day.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 180.45 points, or 0.35 percent, to 51,670.10. The S&P 500 slipped 1.79 points, or 0.02 percent, to 7,805.45, still close to record levels. The Nasdaq Composite lost 41.52 points, or 0.15 percent, to 27,204.38. The small cap Russell 2000 fell 0.39 percent.

Banks report, bank stocks fall

JPMorgan Chase said profit rose to 15.3 billion dollars from 14.4 billion dollars a year earlier, but the result missed analyst forecasts and its investment banking quarter was soft, even as trading revenue improved. Goldman Sachs posted higher profit, helped by stock trading revenue that jumped 72 percent from a year ago and stronger investment banking fees. The numbers were not enough for investors. All four big bank stocks that reported closed lower, and Citigroup fell the most, about 5.5 percent, according to Investopedia.

Johnson and Johnson fell about 6 percent after its MedTech division missed sales estimates, a drop that overshadowed a profit beat and dragged on the Dow. Caterpillar lost 3.5 percent and also weighed on the index. Blackstone fell 4.18 percent as higher yields and analyst target cuts hit the asset manager.

Chip stocks slide again

Memory makers took the second hit in two days. Investors are selling on news that China's CXMT has made progress in memory chip production, a field long led by US and South Korean firms. Micron Technology fell 3.62 percent and Sandisk slipped 0.34 percent. Applied Materials dropped more than 6.5 percent and led the decliners in both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100. The big semiconductor exchange traded funds have now fallen six sessions in a row, their longest losing run since May 2025, the Wall Street Journal reported.

What traders watch next

The yield on the 10 year Treasury note eased 0.03 percentage point to 5.216 percent. Brent crude fell 0.9 percent to 105.69 dollars a barrel. Gold lost 0.3 percent to 4,152.90 dollars an ounce, and the dollar index fell 0.4 percent to 102.19.

The next test lands on Wednesday, Oct. 14, with the September consumer price index. Economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal expect prices rose 3.6 percent from a year earlier, up from 3.4 percent in August. A hotter print would harden bets that the Federal Reserve is not done raising rates. A softer one would give the banks, and the market, room to breathe.