Wall Street retreated from record territory on Tuesday as investors digested the early batch of corporate earnings and guidance at the start of a new profit season for major U.S. companies. The S&P 500 dropped 0.2% from the all-time high it set the day before, and the Dow slid 398 points, or 0.8%, from its own record. The Nasdaq composite also eased, falling 0.1% as markets focused on whether companies can translate their results into continued upward momentum for stocks.
JPMorgan Chase kicked off earnings season with results that underwhelmed relative to analysts’ expectations. The bank’s shares dropped 4.2%, making it one of the heaviest weights on the market. The report also coincided with concerns that some analysts had not updated their estimates to reflect an earnings hit tied to JPMorgan’s purchase of the Apple Card credit card portfolio, according to the report. In remarks carried in the coverage, CEO Jamie Dimon said, “consumers continue to spend, and businesses generally remain healthy.”
Delta Air Lines also moved lower despite reporting a stronger profit than analysts expected. Its shares fell 2.4%, while the company’s revenue came in short of Wall Street’s expectations. The coverage also pointed to Delta’s forecast, including that the midpoint of its range for profit in 2026 came in below what investors expected.
Not every major name stumbled. Chipotle Mexican Grill fell 2.3% after it said it was looking for a new chief marketing officer, a move that surprised analysts. On the winning side, several health care companies lifted the tone for the day by raising parts of their financial outlooks at an industry conference with analysts.
Moderna led the gains in the S&P 500, jumping 17.1% after saying it expects to report 2025 revenue above the midpoint of the range it forecast in November. The company also provided updates on several products, including a seasonal flu vaccine that could see potential approvals beginning later this year, the report said. Revvity rose 6% after it said it expects to report 2025 profit above the top end of an earlier forecast range, and it said its fourth-quarter revenue forecast also topped analysts’ expectations. Cardinal Health added 2.8% after it said it expects to earn at least $10 in adjusted earnings per share in fiscal 2026, compared with its prior expected range of $9.65 to $9.85.
Overall, the major U.S. indexes ended the session lower: the S&P 500 fell 13.53 points to 6,963.74, the Dow declined 398.21 points to 49,191.99, and the Nasdaq composite sank 24.03 points to 23,709.87. Investors also weighed what the day’s bond-market moves could mean for the outlook on borrowing costs.
In the bond market, Treasury yields eased after an inflation update arrived close to economists’ expectations. The report said the data strengthened expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut its main interest rate at least twice in 2026 to shore up the job market. It also noted the trade-off that lower rates could make borrowing cheaper while also worsening inflation at the same time.
The inflation data showed that U.S. consumers paid prices for gasoline, food and other costs of living that were 2.7% higher overall than a year earlier—described in the report as a touch worse than economists expected and above the Fed’s 2% target. The coverage also highlighted a more encouraging undercurrent: an underlying trend of inflation that it said was not as bad last month as economists expected. Ellen Zentner, chief economic strategist for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, was quoted in the coverage saying, “We’ve seen this movie before—inflation isn’t reheating, but it remains above target.”
Those bond-market moves fed into specific yield changes. The report said the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.17% from 4.19% late Monday, while the two-year yield, which more closely tracks expectations for Fed policy, inched down to 3.52% from 3.54%. It also said yields had swung a day earlier amid worries about the Federal Reserve’s widening feud with President Donald Trump and the concern that attacks on the Fed could result in a central bank that is more subservient to the White House, with experts linking that scenario to higher long-term inflation.
Stocks outside the U.S. were mixed in response to the same global mix of rates expectations and earnings signals. The coverage said European and Asian indexes were mixed, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 3.1% to set a record, boosted in part by technology-related stocks. It added that investors expected Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who took office in October, to seek a snap election to capitalize on relatively high popularity and strengthen her mandate for higher government spending.
At home, the first test for Wall Street’s record-run continued to hinge on whether company reports can deliver growth in profits and support the bid for equities. As more U.S. earnings reports roll in, Tuesday’s early miss signals from JPMorgan and Delta underscored the market’s sensitivity to both results and forward guidance—while the health-care upturn showed how strongly investors can reward revised forecasts.