What Drove US Indices Down Today?

Investors dumped technology stocks as they move to safer assets like Gold and Silver that rose today.

• Spot gold jumped 6% lower at $4,939 an ounce by 4:42 PM ET.
• Major technology shares were trading in the red, including most of the “Magnificent Seven” names like Microsoft and Meta Platforms.
• Bitcoin also took a beating as it fell more than 4% and reached its lowest levels since November 2024.

U.S. equities fell on Tuesday after investors dumped major technology stocks as they turned focus on safer assets. 

The S&P 500 dropped 0.84% to settle at 6,917.81, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 1.43% lower to 23,255.19. The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 166.67 points, or 0.34%, to 49,240.99.

Major technology shares were trading in the red, including most of the “Magnificent Seven” names like Microsoft and Meta Platforms that were down 3% and 2%, respectively. 

Nvidia stock also slumped, with the artificial intelligence heavyweight dropping 4%. Meanwhile, software stocks like ServiceNow and Salesforce fell 7% each. 

Other than technology stocks, bitcoin also took a beating as it fell more than 4% and reached its lowest levels since November 2024. The drop is also weighed by significant outflows in bitcoin ETFs over the past two weeks, where investors took out billions. 

Spot gold jumped 6% lower at $4,939 an ounce by 4:42 PM ET. Gold futures for February deliveries was higher nearly 7% to $4,977.90 an ounce.

Stocks In Focus

PayPal (PYPL): PayPal reported Q4 revenue of $8.68 billion, falling short of analyst expectations of $8.79 billion, according to Stocktwits data. 

Palantir (PLTR): Has reported its best annualized growth rate on record (70%) and a massive Q4 revenue beat of $1.41 billion.

Amazon (AMZN): As it gears up to report earnings this week, news reports suggest that it may eliminate 2,200 more jobs as it continues to lean into operational efficiency. 

Tesla (TSLA): It has introduced a new all-wheel-drive Model Y variant in the U.S., priced at $41,990. But investors are also assessing the $1.25 trillion mega-merger between SpaceX and xAI.

Novo Nordisk (NVO): The company on Tuesday said that it sees fiscal 2026 adjusted sales down 5% to 13% as it gears up to face pricing headwinds and a competitive market. 

U.S. equities were mixed in extended hours of trading on Tuesday. At the time of writing, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), which tracks the S&P 500 index, was down by 0.1%, the Invesco QQQ Trust ETF (QQQ) fell 0.13%, and the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust (DIA) was marginally higher.

Retail sentiment around SPY trended in ‘bearish’ territory amid ‘high’ message volume.