Wall Street drops as investors lose confidence

Wall Street drops as investors lose confidence

A wave of late-day jitters hit the stock market on Tuesday, as investors focused on a report questioning early-stage trial results for a possible coronavirus vaccine.

Conway G.

Gittens has the market action.

Investors decided to take a pause Tuesday after a batch of mixed earnings from the retail sector.

The buying also ran out of steam amid a report which cast doubt on the efficacy of a COVID-19 vaccine under development by biotech company Moderna responsible for sending stocks to a 10-week high the day before.

The Dow slid into Tuesday's close to settle with a 1.6 percent loss.

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq were dragged lower as well.

Vespula Capital CEO Jeff Tomasulo: "You have to understand when a market goes up every single day that is a good thing for your bank account but for the long term it is not a good thing.

You want stocks to kind of settle in and for investors to figure out whether this is the right value or not - up here, and to us we're just a little overextended." Walmart kicked off earnings by topping sales and profit forecasts.

Online sales soared during the lockdown.

But Home Depot missed expectations due to extra pay for employees working through the pandemic.

The home improvement retailer said forecasting during the current environment is impossible and so it ditched full-year guidance.

There were promising signs emerging from the airline sector.

Delta is restoring flights to its June schedule and predicts it should break-even by the end of the year.

Southwest said bookings are now outweighing cancelations.

Airline stocks finished mixed.

A big get for Spotify.

Comedian Joe Rogan's popular podcast will begin streaming on Spotify on September 1st and by next year will only be found there.

Shares of Spotify surged to a 1-1/2 year high.

The latest economic signals continue to be glum.

New housing construction suffered its sharpest slump on record - down a seasonally adjusted rate of more than 30 percent in April.