Equities faltered Tuesday to give back Monday's advance with chipmakers leading the losses. The Dow Jones industrial average and the S&P 500 both lost 0.8 percent and the Nasdaq was down 1.0 percent. Bond yields and the dollar declined while oil prices dropped.

A report that the Biden administration is considering new curbs on semiconductor exports to certain countries sparked losses in the sector, including Nvidia, the AI champion. Losses gained steam after soft revenues and gloomy guidance from ASML. Earnings news came in mixed with health stocks hurt by bad reaction to weaker than expected results from UnitedHealth. On the positive side, banks were mostly better on earnings news, apart from Citigroup which slipped.

Other lagging sectors included energy after oil continued lower on reports Israel would not strike Iranian energy facilities in its retaliation for Iranian rocket attacks. Chemicals, industrial metals and China technology shares also fared poorly.

Economic reports were scant with the Empire State manufacturing report much weaker than expected but not attracting much attention. Investors are expected to pay more attention to a big data batch on Thursday featuring retail sales, jobless claims, Philly Fed and industrial production.

Market Reflections track market reaction to the trading day's major events. Economic data, policymaker speeches, and company news are featured in this report as well as key indexes and financial instruments.

Understanding why markets respond as they do is fundamental for an investor. Market Reflections help explain how the day's events, news, and data impact the outlook for the economy and for market prices.