Wall St ends lower for the day and week as chip selloff broadens

Wall St ends lower for the day and week as chip selloff broadens

By Stephen Culp and Ragini Mathur

Fri July 17, 2026  

Another severe down day for tech, which is probably a healthy thing as it is cooling down a market that was widely feared to be way overheated. As today’s expert put it, “The market has chip fatigue. Those stocks got way ahead of themselves and now they’re coming back to Earth.” Tech was down from open but the Dow actually started the day about 60 points in the black around 45 minutes after open, but was almost 600 points down at open but zoomed up to break-even within half an hour before falling off the cliff again with a gradual decline all afternoon that still led to a 3-digit loss at close. Tech’s fall from grace was understandable but the Dow’s decline is more of a mystery, especially given how strong Q2 has been so far.  

With 10% of the S&P reporting, 90% have beaten estimates. Earnings growth which was at 23.7% on Monday got a boost to 26.0% today, both quite a hike from April’s 19.2% estimate. Consumer sentiment hit a 5-month high but housing starts dipped and industrial output remained static. Because of the escalating war and resulting crude spikes, energy was the only gainer with consumer discretionary and communications falling the most. The chip index closed 20.2% below its June 22 record high and logged its steepest weekly loss in over a year. All three indexes were down for the week. The good news is that the chip index is still up 65% for the year vs the overall S&P at 9%. Volume came in at 17.55 billion, still well below the 20.87 average but getting closer. 

DJ: 52,552.97  -105.67        NAS: 25,881.95  -387.28        S&P: 7,533.77  -38.63           7/16

DJ: 52,146.42  -406.55        NAS: 25,520.24  -361.70        S&P: 7,457.69  -76.08           7/17

Fri 7-17-26 4:30 pm Wall St ends lower for the day and week as chip selloff broadens | Reuters