The losses were more severe in European stock markets, where France's CAC 40 index fell 1.8% and Germany's DAX lost 1.7%. They sank after Russia said Ukraine fired six U.S.-made ATACMS missiles at it. Earlier in the day, Russian President Vladimir Putinformally lowered the threshold for Russia's use of its nuclear weapons.
Gold rose 0.5% and recovered some of the losses it sustained following Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. presidential election. Prices also rose for U.S. Treasury bonds, which are seen as some of the world's safest investments. That in turn lowered their yields, and the 10-year Treasury yield fell to 4.37% from 4.41% late Monday.
Such cautiousness overshadowed optimism coming from several reports by big U.S. retailers showing bigger profits for the summer than expected.
Walmart climbed 3.4% after topping forecasts for both profit and revenue. The nation's biggest retailer said it saw broad-based strength across its categories, including sales both online and in stores. It also said it served more upper-income households, while raising its forecasts for sales and profit for the full year.
Lowe’s likewise delivered bigger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected, but its stock nevertheless slipped 3.5%.
A report in the morning said construction crews broke ground on fewer new homes last month than economists expected.
Other big companies set to report this week include chipmaker Nvidia and Target on Wednesday and Deere on Thursday.
Nvidia, with a total market value of nearly $3.5 trillion, will need to hit analysts’ high expectations for growth during the latest quarter to justify its big stock price, which has surged more than 185% this year amid Wall Street’s frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology.
Elsewhere on Wall Street, Super Micro Computer soared 22% after it said it filed a plan with Nasdaq to keep its stock listed on the exchange. It also said it hired an independent auditor, which can help it file financial statements that it needs to in order to comply with Nasdaq’s listing requirements.
The company's stock has been on a wild ride. It more than quadrupled in the first two and a half months of this year because the company makes servers used in AI. But it gave up all that and more, with losses accelerating after Ernst & Young resigned as its public accounting firm. A special committee of the company's board later said that a three-month investigation found "no evidence of fraud or misconduct on the part of management or the Board of Directors."
In stock markets abroad, indexes in Asia were more stable than in Europe. They rose 0.7% in Shanghai and 0.4% in Hong Kong, rebounding from early losses.
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AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.