Stocks slip as investors eye Mideast talks, earnings

STORY: Stocks fell Thursday, pausing after a strong start to the week. The Dow dropped close to one percent. The S&P 500 slid about two tenths and the Nasdaq was basically flat. Investors digested the latest round of corporate earnings and looked for signs of progress toward a peace deal between the U.S. and Iran. Strong corporate results so far have tempered some concerns about the massive spending by AI-related companies. Ben McMillan, chief investment officer with IDX Advisors, says AI will likely continue to push stocks higher though investors have broadened their view of who is likely to benefit from the growth of the technology. “So I think the AI trade broadly is still very much intact. I do think investors, and we're hearing this from our investors and others that we talked to, are going to be a little bit more discerning, they're going to be more judicious, they're going to start looking at maybe much more the picks and shovels plays we're hearing a lot more interest in things like you know uranium and power providers as you know an AI play as well as things like photonic stocks and you know not necessarily just betting on you know chips or semiconductors.” Stocks on the move included data storage company Western Digital which tumbled 13% and memory chip maker Sandisk which dropped nearly seven percent in the wake of quarterly results. Both companies have surged this year, however, with Sandisk up more than 400% and Western Digital up about 160%. And SpaceX erased losses from earlier in the session and closed six percent higher, defying expectations that shares would be pressured by insider selling, as the lockup period for early investors holding the stock expired. 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, which will shape expectations for the Fed's path of interest rates at a time when Chairman Ke