U.S. stocks ended lower on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 putting in a fourth straight session of losses as valuation worries hit big technology-related shares and a disappointing forecast pressured Home Depot.

Market Snapshot

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 498.50 points, or 1.07%, to 46,091.74, the S&P 500 lost 55.09 points, or 0.83%, to 6,617.32 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 275.23 points, or 1.21%, to 22,432.85.

Market Movers

Nvidia, Microsoft - Nvidia fell 2.8% and Microsoft declined 2.7% after unveiling apartnership with Anthropic. As part of the agreement the AI start-up will purchase $30 billion worth of Microsoft Azure compute capacity as it scales its Claude AI on the platform. Nvidia has committed to invest up to $10 billion in Anthropic, while Microsoft will invest up to $5 billion.

Nvidia, the leading maker of AI chips, has been under pressure heading into its third-quarter earnings report scheduled for after the closing bell Wednesday. “The stock now has a slightly lower bar to clear post-earnings. We expect Nvidia to exceed estimates and provide future earnings and revenue guidance that is higher than investors expect,” said James Demmert, chief investment officer at Main Street Research.

Other big tech stock also dropped on Tuesday. Amazon and AMD sank 4.4%, Tesla fell 1.9%, Micron fell 5.6%, and Palantir fell 2.3%.

Home Depot, Lowe's - Home Depot fell 6% after third-quarter adjusted earnings missed analysts’ estimates and the largest U.S. home-improvement retailer cut its full-year outlook. Comparable-store sales in the third quarter rose 0.2% but missed forecasts. Home Depot reduced its outlook for comparable-sales growth to be slightly positive, down from a previous forecast of up 1%. “An expected increase in demand in the third quarter did not materialize. We believe that consumer uncertainty and continued pressure in housing are disproportionately impacting home improvement demand,” said Home Depot President and CEO Ted Decker. Competitor Lowe’s retreated 2.4%.

Cloudflare - Cloudflare slipped 2.8%. Earlier Tuesday, the cloud-service provider reported widespread outages that affected sites such as X and ChatGPT. The company said in an update around 12:45 p.m. ET that services were back to operating normally. “We are no longer observing elevated errors or latency across the network,” Cloudflare said in a statement on its website.

Merck - Merck gained 3.8%. The pharmaceutical company said one of its continuing Phase 2 trials of its Winrevair biologic had been successful, and that it planned to proceed with a Phase 3 study. Winrevair is meant to be used in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension, and is expected to be a top seller.

Honeywell - Honeywell International declined 2.4% to $191.45 after the industrial giant was downgraded to Underperform from Buy at BofA Securities. The price target was reduced to $205 from $265. Analysts said the path for Honeywell was “challenging.” They see limited earnings growth in 2026.

Energizer - Energizer Holdings tumbled 18.5% after the battery maker posted fiscal fourth-quarter adjusted earnings that missed Wall Street forecasts and the company projected a soft start to fiscal 2026 as it operates “through a period of transition,” with the first quarter “more heavily affected by temporary tariff costs and mitigation efforts.”

Baidu - U.S.-listed shares of Baidu gained 2.7% after the Chinese search-engine provider reported better-than-expected adjusted net income in the third quarter of 3.77 billion yuan ($530 million) but revenue fell 7% from a year ago to ¥31.17 billion.

PDD Holdings - American depositary receipts of Temu owner PDD Holdings declined 7.3% after third-quarter revenue growth slowed. “In the third quarter, revenues growth continued to moderate, reflecting the ongoing evolution of the competitive landscape and external uncertainties,” said Jun Liu, vice president of finance.

Medtronic - Medtronic, the medical device maker, gained 4.7%. The company posted fiscal second-quarter earnings and revenue that topped analysts’ estimates and raised its fiscal 2026 guidance.

Klarna - Klarna declined 9.3%. The buy-now, pay-later company posted third-quarter revenue of $903 million, up from $706 million in the same quarter last year, and better than analysts’ estimates of $885.5 million. The earnings report was the fintech’s first since going public in September.

Market News

US Unemployment Rolls Swelled Between Mid-September and Mid-October

The number of Americans on jobless benefits surged between mid-September and mid-October, government data showed on Tuesday, suggesting an elevated unemployment rate in October as an uncertain economic environment discourages hiring.

The Labor Department only published the so-called continuing claims data for the weeks ending October 11 and 18. The government would have surveyed businesses and households for October's employment report during the week ending October 18.

The number of people receiving unemployment benefits after an initial week of aid, a proxy for hiring, increased 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 1.957 million during the week ended October 18, the data showed. Continuing claims shot up from the 1.916 million level in the week ended September 13.

The substantial increase in continuing claims between the September and October survey weeks would suggest a high unemployment rate in October, and is consistent with lethargic hiring. A report from ADP showed private employers shed an average of 2,500 jobs a week during the four weeks ending November 1.

Trump Says His Administration Has Started Interviews for Next Fed Chair

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he was speaking with various people about the Federal Reserve chairman's job and had some unexpected candidates on the list of those who might replace Jerome Powell.

Trump reiterated that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent did not want the job and continued to berate Powell, who he has repeatedly criticized for not lowering interest rates faster.

"I'd love to get the guy currently in there out... but people are holding me back," he said, referring to Powell, whose term as Fed chair is up in May.