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Stocks Mostly Down Pre-Bell Amid Chip Sell-Off; Traders Await More Earnings

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Stocks Mostly Down Pre-Bell Amid Chip Sell-Off; Traders Await More Earnings

US equity futures were mostly tracking in the red on Tuesday amid a selloff in chip stocks over concerns about artificial intelligence financing, while traders await the latest batch of corporate earnings.

The S&P 500 declined 0.2% and the Nasdaq fell 0.9% in premarket activity, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 0.1%. The indexes finished the previous trading session mixed.

Shares of Nvidia (NVDA) were down 0.9% pre-bell after closing Monday with a nearly 5% decrease. The tech bellwether is reportedly in talks to provide a roughly $250 billion backstop for OpenAI as part of a data-center project, raising concerns about "circular financing," in which suppliers are also major investors in their customers.

Sandisk (SNDK) slipped 7.2% while Intel (INTC) was off 4.1%. Marvell Technology (MRVL) shed 4.9% and Qualcomm (QCOM) declined 2.9%. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) dropped about 4%.

West Texas Intermediate crude oil declined 2.2% to $80.86 a barrel before the opening bell, while Brent slid 2.3% to $86.32.

US President Donald Trump told Axios on Monday that the US is in "very deep talks" with Iran, though he said military action could resume if diplomacy fails. His remarks came as the US apparently halted strikes against Iran.

"While this is the first tangible signal of de-escalation, the reasons behind it are less clear," ING Bank said in a report on Monday. "There's little explanation from the US. Also, it hasn't yet led to any meaningful pickup in vessel flows through the Strait of Hormuz."

Tehran's foreign ministry continued to hold discussions with Saudi Arabia and Oman on Tuesday over the future of the Strait of Hormuz, CNBC reported.

Coca-Cola (KO), Boeing (BA), S&P Global (SPGI), United Parcel Service (UPS), Royal Caribbean Cruises (RCL), Sherwin-Williams (SHW) and PayPal (PYPL) are some of the major companies scheduled to report their latest financial results Tuesday. Visa (V), NXP Semiconductors (NXPI) and automaker Ford (F) are expected to release their earnings after the markets close.

The Federal Reserve's monetary policy committee is set to kick off its meeting on interest rates today, with a decision due Wednesday. The probability of the central bank leaving its benchmark lending rate unchanged currently stands at 64%, with the remaining odds in favor of a quarter-percentage-point increase, according to the CME FedWatch tool.

UBS Securities said Monday it expects three dissents as a base case, but won't be surprised to see two more pushing for a rate hike.

Treasury yields were down in premarket action, with the two- and 10-year rates retreating 1.9 basis points each to 4.3% and 4.62%, respectively.

Tuesday's economic calendar also has the international trade in goods data, as well as the retail and wholesale inventories reports, all for June, at 8:30 am ET. The Case-Shiller Home Price Index and the Federal Housing Finance Agency House Price Index, both for May, post at 9 am.

The consumer confidence report for July is out at 10 am, along with the Richmond Fed manufacturing index for the same month.

Gold moved down 1.4% to $4,021 per troy ounce, while bitcoin dropped 2.2% to $63,463.

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