S&P 500 struggles for direction as investors await Mideast deal; software stocks slide

By Johann M Cherian and Shashwat Chauhan

Aug 6 (Reuters) – Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 struggled for direction in choppy trading on Thursday as investors took a breather from a record-breaking rally earlier this week and awaited any signs of a peace deal in the Middle East.

Chip stocks shrugged off earlier losses and traded mostly higher, building on a rebound from late last week that sent the S&P 500 and the blue-chip Dow to record highs, as strong earnings from tech leaders renewed investor confidence in the AI trade.

Marvell, Qualcomm and Advanced Micro Devices gained about 2% each and aided a 1.8% rise in the broader Philadelphia Semiconductor Index.

Limiting gains, data storage company Western Digital lost 9.6% and memory chip maker Sandisk dropped 3.5%, after having shot up 200% and 400% this year. Both stocks, however, were trading off session lows. The companies forecast quarterly revenue above expectations, betting on strong AI-driven demand.

“There are just incredible expectations and chips have done so well this year through June so there’s just some digestion going on in the market,” said Hank Smith, director and head of investment strategy at Haverford Trust.

Software stocks such as Atlassian, Dow component Salesforce, Adobe and Zscaler were down sharply following earnings reports from a few companies in the sector.

AppLovin dropped 19.3% as the marketing platform missed Wall Street estimates for quarterly revenue, while Datadog lost 14.7% after the cloud security firm said it expects revenue growth to slow in the third quarter.

At 11:18 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 269.67 points, or 0.50%, to 54,079.45, the S&P 500 lost 4.98 points, or 0.06%, to 7,718.57 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 43.39 points, or 0.17%, to 26,405.61.

SPACEX LOCK-UP PERIOD EXPIRES

SpaceX shares wiped out earlier losses and were up 2.3%, defying expectations that they would be pressured by insider selling, as the lock-up period for early investors holding the stock expired.

At $111 apiece, the stock, however, was trading some way off its offering price of $135, reflecting how its historic post-IPO gains quickly fizzled out.

“At the level of the stock, you won’t see that many shares turnover. A lot of people are going to wait to monetize their insider holdings when the share price goes back above the offering (price),” said Brian Mulberry, chief market strategist at Zacks Investment Management.

In geopolitics, Brent crude prices rose 2.2% above $81 as investors weighed the back-and-forth regarding a potential deal between Iran and the United States. The rise pushed 2-year and 5-year Treasury yields over 5 basis points each, further limiting stocks.

On the data front, the number of Americans filing claims for unemployment benefits increased slightly last week.

The report came ahead of closely watched nonfarm payrolls figures for July due on Friday that could be key in assessing the Federal Reserve’s future interest rate path at a time when Chairman Kevin Warsh has dialed back any forward guidance.

Honeywell Aerospace sank 21% as supply-chain issues forced it to cut its annual sales target and forecast profit below estimates.

Parker-Hannifin rose 7% as the motion and control tech firm forecast full-year profit above estimates.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.07-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and by a 1.11-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P 500 posted 29 new 52-week highs and three new lows, while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 108 new highs and 51 new lows.

(Reporting by Johann M Cherian and Shashwat Chauhan in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath and Maju Samuel)