By Kate Gibson, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — U.S. stocks mostly declined Tuesday as the U.S. dollar advanced on uncertainty over Europe, hitting energy and natural-resource companies that make up roughly a fifth of the companies on S&P 500.
“One of the things we’re fighting against in the near term is the firming dollar, we’ve seen that have two effects, commodity prices go down and unfortunately stock prices do as well,” said Art Hogan, a managing director at Lazard Capital Markets.
“Close to 20% of the S&P 500 are directly related to commodity prices,” Hogan said.
Concern about technology earnings also weighed on investor sentiment. Advanced Micro Devices Inc. AMD -9.98% shares fell 11% after the maker of processors for personal computers reported an unexpected drop in sales.
Applied Materials Inc. AMAT -1.64% slid 1.1% after the maker of equipment for chip manufacturers reduced its fiscal-year profit and sales projections.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA +0.07% shed 10.03 points, or 0.1%, to 12,746.32.
The S&P 500 index SPX -0.19% fell 2.72 points, or 0.2%, to 1,349.74.
The Nasdaq Composite COMP -0.41% shed 13.25 points, or 0.5%, to 2,918.52.
Decliners moved just ahead of advancers on the New York Stock Exchange, where 250 million shares traded as of 12:20 p.m. Eastern.
The dollar DXY +0.27% rose against other global currencies including the euro, against which it hit a two-year high after a German court and Italy’s prime minister added to uncertainty about the euro zone’s bailout fund. Read more on currencies.
Oil fell after Norway intervened to halt a labor dispute that threatened its North Sea production and China released economic data illustrating a roughly 6% rise in June imports, down from the prior month and less than analysts expected.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, crude prices CLQ2 -1.21% were lately off 93 cents at $85.06 a barrel and gold futures GCQ2 -0.20% shed $4.60 to $1,584.50.
U.S. stocks had started the session higher after European leaders moved to bolster Spain’s banks, saying they would provide as much as 100 billion euros ($123 billion) in rescue loans to protect on of the euro area’s larger economies.
Kate Gibson is a reporter for MarketWatch, based in New York.
