STORY: U.S. stocks ended slightly lower on Tuesday, as investors awaited the latest earnings from Alphabet and Tesla, which reported after the close.
The Dow and S&P 500 each dropped more than a tenth of a percent, while the Nasdaq lost a bit less than that.
Shares of Tesla, down 2% at the close, dropped further in after-hours trading. The EV maker said its second-quarter margin dipped as price cuts and incentives to spur sagging demand continued to hurt Tesla's bottom line.
And shares of Alphabet, marginally higher at the close, rose about 2% after hours. The Google parent beat second-quarter revenue estimates, driven by a rise in digital advertising sales and healthy demand for its cloud computing services.
Wall Street's main indexes were little changed during most of the session, having given up meager intraday gains in the final minutes of trading.
Joy Yang is head of product management and marketing for MarketVector Indexes.
"I think stocks seem to be quite muted today, but this is on the back of some very eventful news headlines that we've seen over the past week, and some of them quite shocking and unexpected, moving the markets immediately. So I think we're seeing markets take a little breather right now."
Helping subdue equity markets were disappointing earnings from household names.
UPS, seen as a bellwether for the global economy, slumped 12% after missing earnings estimates. The stock closed at its lowest level in four years.
General Motors dropped nearly 6.5% despite second-quarter results that beat estimates, and a higher annual profit forecast.
And Comcast lost more than 2.5% after missing its revenue estimates.
On the flip side, shares of Spotify jumped 12% after posting a record quarterly profit.
