Wall Street Close: Bears take profits, bulls support tech

Wall Street was less eventful on Tuesday but managed to see stocks looking healthier, albeit little changed.

On Monday, all the three major stock indexes chalked up their biggest declines in about four weeks following the news that a record number of new coronavirus cases across Europe and in the United States and as the elusive stimulus rattled investors.

On Tuesday, both the Dow and S&P 500 were dipping on disappointing earnings while investors are a now holding very few hopes for a U.S.coronavirus stimulus before Election Day.

However, the Nasdaq managed to eke out a gain as investors looked ahead to the biotechnology company results.

The White House announced that COVID-19 relief would come in "weeks," rather than before the elections, in other words.

Sectors sensitive to economic growth took a hit, with both the S&P 500 banks index. However, the tech-heavy Nasdaq climbed as Microsoft Corp MSFT firmed in the run-up to its results after the closing bell, and the technology heavyweights supported the S&P500.

The Nasdaq rose in anticipation of results later this week from Apple Inc AAPL, Amazon.com AMZN, Google-parent Alphabet GOOG and Facebook Inc FB.

The tech bellwethers together account for about a fifth of the S&P 500's total value.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost  221.37 points or 0.8%, to 27,464.01, the S&P 500 SPX fell 10.23 points, or 0.30%, to 3,390.74 and the Nasdaq put on 72.41 points, or 0.64%, to 11,431.35.

Meanwhile, Wall Street's fear gauge VIX hovered at its highest level since early September on election jitters. 

S&P 500 levels