Traders work on the floor of the American Stock Exchange (AMEX) at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, US, on Thursday, July 16, 2026.
Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Stocks fell on Thursday as a sell-off in technology stocks overshadowed a raft of solid earnings reports.
The S&P 500 lost 0.51% and ended at 7,533.77, while the Nasdaq Composite declined 1.47% to 25,881.95. The tech-heavy major averages struggled with weakness in semiconductors. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 105.67 points, or 0.20%, and closed at 52,552.97.
Chip stocks slid after Taiwan Semiconductor posted an increase in its spending forecast, which overshadowed a better-than-expected second-quarter report. The company expects capital expenditures to clock in between $60 billion and $64 billion for the year, up from a prior guidance in the range of $52 billion to $56 billion. The stock lost more than 2%.
The VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) slid almost 4%, led by a more than 5% drop in Arm Holdings. Shares of Micron Technology and Advanced Micro Devices were also lower by more than 5% each. Broadcom was off 5%. The U.S.-listed shares of SK Hynix slid more than 13%.
Elsewhere in technology, shares of Alphabet dropped more than 4% as the company has reportedly delayed releasing its most powerful artificial intelligence model known as Gemini 3.5 Pro. Other “Magnificent Seven” names Meta Platforms, Nvidia and Amazon were also in the red.
That said, earnings season is off to a strong start this week. Of the 40 S&P 500 companies that have already reported, more than 87% topped Wall Street’s estimates. The major banks, which are considered a bellwether for economic activity, crushed second quarter earnings expectations earlier in the week.
“All told, it’s still a strong market when you look at earnings across all caps,” said Patrick Ryan, chief investment strategist at Madison Investments.
The latest raft of economic data continued to show a U.S. consumer holding up in the face of higher pricing pressures. Jobless claims for the week ending July 11 came in at a seasonally adjusted 208,000, lower than the 218,000 expected by economists polled by Dow Jones. Retail sales met expectations, up 0.2%.
