US stocks slid on Wednesday continuing a bruising stretch for tech stocks, as investors weighed the latest retail earnings and waited for Federal Reserve minutes to provide clues to interest-rate cuts.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) was up off less than 0.1%, while the S&P 500 (^GSPC) slipped about 0.6%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) led the losses declining more than 1.2%. After a nearly 10% drop on Tuesday, Palantir (PLTR) fell another 5% in early trade. Meanwhile AI chip leaders Nvidia (NVDA) and Broadcom (AVGO) each fell more than 2%.

The tech-led selloff has put markets on edge, as investors rotate out of riskier stocks into previously lagging sectors amid concerns about the AI boom's staying power.

Attention is now on the latest batch of big retail earnings, with Target's (TGT) results the highlight on Wednesday. Target eked out a profit beat and held to its guidance, but pressures from tariffs and a squeezed consumer added up to another downbeat quarter — and will pose challenges for newly announced CEO Michael Fiddelke. Its shares sank 10%.

Next up are Walmart (WMT) earnings on Thursday, watched for further signs of how companies and consumers are handing President Trump's tariffs.

Read more: The latest on Trump's tariffs

The main event for Wall Street lands on Friday, when Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will deliver remarks at the Jackson Hole symposium in Wyoming. Investors are eager for a sense of where policymakers stand on interest rate cuts after economic data this month revealed a tricky dilemma between a weakening labor market and stubborn inflation.

Wednesday's release of minutes from the Fed's July meeting will serve as a curtain-raiser to Powell's speech. Policymakers held rates steady at that meeting and stressed no decisions had been made about a cut in September, despite Trump suggesting otherwise.

Tuesday's market action was all about isolated selling in some of the market's biggest winners.

Wednesday's early session has brought more of the same as Big Tech is clearly leading the selling action once more.

After a nearly 10% drop on Tuesday, Palantir (PLTR) fell another 7% in early trade. Meanwhile AI chip leaders Nvidia (NVDA) and Broadcom (AVGO) each fell more than 3%.

President Trump on Wednesday called on Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook to resign as the public pressure on the central bank continues to build.

\\"Cook must resign, now!!!\\" Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social Wednesday morning with a link to a Bloomberg report on a letter sent by Federal Housing Finance Agency head Bill Pulte urging Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate Cook over a pair of mortgages.

Pulte wrote in a letter dated Aug. 15 that Cook, “falsified bank documents and property records to acquire more favorable loan terms, potentially committing mortgage fraud under the criminal statute.”

The President's call for Cook to resign comes as public pressure on the Fed continues amid ongonig changes on the Fed's Board of Governors.

Read more here.

US stocks were mixed on Wednesday after a bruising day for tech stocks, as investors weighed the latest retail earnings and waited for Federal Reserve minutes to provide clues to interest-rate cuts.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) was up about 0.1%, while the S&P 500 (^GSPC) slipped about 0.2%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) fell roughly 0.4%, after weakness in the likes of Palantir (PLTR) and Nvidia (NVDA) dragged on the broader market on Tuesday.

Here's a look at how Wall Street is reacting to a burst of earnings reports ahead of the opening bell on Wednesday:

Target (TGT) stock dived more than 10%, facing its worst sell-off since early April. The retailer cleared a low bar of earnings expectations, but comparable sales continued to fall during the quarter.

Lowe's (LOW) stock rose 2.5%. The home improvement retailer reported a return to same-store sales growth, echoing positive results from Home Depot (HD) on Tuesday. Home Depot stock fell 1.3% before the bell.

Estée Lauder (EL) shares fell 5%. The beauty company's annual profit forecast disappointed and executives said they expect a $100 million headwind from tariffs.

Baidu (BIDU) shares edged 0.2% lower. The Chinese search engine company reported a drop in second quarter revenue as strong growth in cloud services was offset by weakness in its core advertising business.

Toll Brothers (TOL) stock added 0.45%. The homebuilder reported an earnings and revenue beat on Tuesday afternoon, though new orders were less than analysts' expected.

La-Z-Boy (LZB) stock tanked 20% after the company missed estimates amid soft demand. Sales for its Joybird furniture brand declined 14%.

Read more live coverage of corporate earnings here 

Hertz (HTZ) stock rose over 10% after the car rental company announced it is teaming up with Amazon (AMZN) to sell pre-owned vehicles.

Customers will be able to browse Hertz used car sales on Amazon, purchase vehicles online, and then pick them up at select Hertz locations. It will initially be offered in Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, and Seattle, with plans to expand to 45 locations nationwide.

Hertz sells pre-owned cars in addition to renting them out. The company is in the midst of a turnaround, and shares have outperformed this year with a 42% year-to-date rise.

Read more here.

What would it take for Intel (INTC) to turn its business around? Yahoo Finance's Hamza Shaban digs into that question in today's Morning Brief.

Caught flatfooted by the explosion of AI, analysts have called on the ailing company to get out of the chip manufacturing business or reconsider its approach to its third-party chip foundry.

As the nation's last premier chipmaker, Intel's standing goes beyond its modest market cap. The company's importance is tied to national security interests and increasingly relevant discussions about technological sovereignty and an AI arms race.

In that context, it's easier to see why the White House would take such an interest in Intel — literally and figuratively. The Trump administration is in discussions to take a roughly 10% stake of the company, according to multiple reports, becoming the chipmaker’s largest shareholder by turning billions in CHIPS Act grants into partial ownership.

But the government potentially using funding for equity goes beyond the money. It signals the administration's ambitions to revive domestic semiconductor manufacturing, even as such a deal challenges free market principles around private sector decision making and the free flow of capital.

Read more here.

Continuation funds have become hugely popular among America's biggest private fund managers this year.

Yahoo Finance's David Hollerith breaks down why, and exactly how they work:

One of the hottest places in private markets this summer is in the secondary market, where a record amount of big funds and their customers struggling to exit positions are finding a way out.

Welcome to continuation funds or vehicles, also known as \\"CVs.\\"

A good chunk of this year's activity in that space has so far come from private fund managers, most of all those in private equity. The vehicles allow fund managers to flip older assets from their maturing funds into new, fresher pools of capital. Funds do this because they don't think they've gotten enough value from their older assets.

The structure style has largely been normalized by the private equity market, according to Jefferies. Not without a history of controversy, continuation funds have so far proven to be one of the fastest-growing areas of the secondaries market this year, accounting for $41 billion worth of transaction volume. ...

Traditional private equity funds raise money from large institutional investors in order to buy out companies. The next step is to improve margins so that they can eventually take these companies public or sell them and return profits to their investors.

That model has faced difficulty in recent years.

Read more here.

Palantir stock (PLTR) looks like it may extend its losing streak to six trading days after reaching an all-time high.

Shares fell 3% in premarket trading on Wednesday after a 9% decline on Tuesday. Since hitting $186.97 per share on Aug. 12, the stock is now trading around $153, putting it 18% off its record closing high.

Investors rotating out of large-cap tech names and a bearish report from short seller Citron Research have weighed on the stock.

Read more here.

Target's (TGT) results on Wednesday morning weren't as shockingly bad as for the first quarter, but the retailer is still struggling to find its place in the new economic norm of more discerning shoppers.

Shares in the US retail giant sank 10% in premarket trading as the announcement of a new CEO still left investors wanting more.

Yahoo Finance's Brian Sozzi reports:

Target's second quarter earnings narrowly surpassed consensus forecasts as it wrung out cost savings. The company also maintained the full-year outlook it slashed three months ago.

But headwinds from a pressured US consumer, an influx of tariffs from the Trump administration, market-share loss to rival Walmart (WMT), and operational challenges were apparent.

Target's comparable sales fell 1.9% from a year ago, led by a 3.2% drop at its stores. Comparable digital sales increased 4.3%. Gross profit margins declined to 29% from 30% a year ago.

Read more here.

Economic data: FOMC Minutes (July 30-31 meeting); MBA weekly mortgage applications

Earnings: Target (TGT), Baidu (BIDU), Lowe's (LOW), TJX Companies (TJX), Estée Lauder (EL)

Here are some of the biggest stories you may have missed overnight and early this morning:

Target earnings miss the mark as sales keep falling

Target will have a new CEO for the first time since 2014

Intel's Trump deal perks may rival the money

Buffett effect still holds as UnitedHealth soars through August

This summer's hottest trend on Wall Street: 'Private for longer'

US housing warning sparks worst James Hardie selloff since 1973

US treasury chief says status quo with China 'working pretty well'

Sales of foreign-branded phones in China down 31.3% in June: Data

China exports of key rare-earth EV magnets hit 6-month high

Target (TGT) is tapping a homegrown talent as its next CEO at one of the most pivotal moments in its 63-year history.

The discounter announced that longtime CEO Brian Cornell's heavily groomed No. 2, Michael Fiddelke, will take over as CEO on Feb. 1, 2026. Cornell, who has been CEO of Target since August 2014, will slide into the executive chair position for an undetermined period of time. Fiddelke joined Target in 2003 as an intern and rose through the ranks to CFO and then COO.

\\"I've had this conversation with the board for a number of years, and I've been in the role for 11 years. I'm going into my 12th now. I will actually turn 67 early next year, and I think it's time for me to step back, recharge, spend a lot more time with my family, a lot fewer nights in hotels, and be a great supporter of Michael and the team for the rest of my life,\\" Cornell told me by video call while sitting next to Fiddelke at the company's Minneapolis headquarters.

Fiddelke added, \\"I bleed Target red after 20 years here, and there's nothing more important to me than working with the incredible team that we have to chart the next chapter for Target. I mean, I've seen us in that 20 years at our best. I've seen us not at our best. When we're at our best, we are pretty darn tough to beat.\\"

To students of Target history such as myself, this decision isn't a surprise. For one, Fiddelke has been Cornell's right-hand man for several years now. It has become quite apparent over the past year that he was grooming Fiddelke to take over while also working behind the scenes to get board buy-in. I have gotten to know Fiddelke in recent years. He is a nice fella and has indeed earned the opportunity to sit in the CEO seat.

If this was any other time for Target, the decision would probably be celebrated. It's not often an intern at a company becomes its CEO. The only comparable story I can think of is Walmart (WMT) CEO Doug McMillon going from truck loader at the retailer to CEO.

But Fiddelke will unlikely have a honeymoon period, seeing as he has been there at Target during its past 24 months of struggles (which includes a weak second quarter). People I have talked to wanted an outsider as Target's next CEO, fresh eyes to come in and fix what is wrong (not unlike when Cornell was brought in back in 2014 — his career was mostly spent at Walmart and PepsiCo (PEP)). Fiddelke will be seen as a continuation of a strategy that hasn't been working.

I asked him on the call how candid he plans to be in the early going on the strategy review, which is what all new leaders do. He sounded like he was ready to divert from Cornell's playbook and shake things up. He will have to do just that, and quickly, to win over a likely skeptical Wall Street.

Wall Street is digging into the factors behind this week's selloff in tech stocks, with many seeing it as a timely rotation out of riskier names. There are a few potential triggers, the Financial Times reports:

US tech stocks sold off as warnings that the hype surrounding artificial intelligence could be overdone hit some of the year’s best-performing shares. ...

Traders pinned some of the declines in the US on a critical report on Monday authored by a branch of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Researchers said “95 per cent of organisations are getting zero return” from their investments in generative AI, the technology that has sent US stocks soaring to record highs in recent months.

“The story is spooking people,” said one trader close to a multibillion-dollar US tech fund.

“Just 5 per cent of integrated AI pilots are extracting millions in value, while the vast majority remain stuck with no measurable [profit and loss] impact,” the MIT report said.

The stock drop also came days after OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman signalled an AI bubble might be forming. “Are investors over excited? My opinion is yes,” Altman said late last week.

Read more here (premium)

Here's a look at some of the top stocks trending in premarket trading:

Estée Lauder (EL) stock fell 8% before the bell on Wednesday after the beauty group forecast annual profit below Wall Street estimates, as it grapples with persistent weakness in the US and China markets and tariff uncertainty.

Micron Technology, Inc. (MU) shares slipped 2% in premarket trading Wednesday following news that the US government is looking into taking equity stakes in computer chip manufacturers that received CHIPS Act funding to build factories in the US.

Toll Brothers (TOL) stock fell 3% before the bell after beating Wall Street estimates for its third quarter earnings. A slowdown in new orders weighed on the stock, sending shares down.

A profit warning from James Hardie (JHX, JHX.XA) has fueled worries about recession in the US housing market and sent the Australian building materials giant's stock tumbling on Wall Street before the bell.

Bloomberg reports:

A downbeat outlook on the US housing market from James Hardie Industries sent shares of the building materials producer tumbling the most in five decades, the latest sign of caution around a pillar of the world’s largest economy.

The company’s shares tumbled 28%, the most since November 1973, after its quarterly profit sank and it warned demand for repairs and new construction in North America remains challenging.

“Uncertainty is a common thread throughout conversations with customer and contractor partners,” Chief Executive Officer Aaron Erter said in a statement. Homeowners are deferring large-ticket remodeling projects, and affordability remains the key impediment to improvement in single-family new construction, he added.

Read more here.

Bloomberg reports:

Gold (GC=F) held a small decline ahead of a key address by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell later this week, which may give fresh clues on the central bank’s monetary path.

Bullion traded at around $3,315 an ounce early in Asia, holding a 0.5% decline from the previous session after the latest efforts to halt the Russia-Ukraine war impacted haven demand. Attention is turning to Powell’s annual address at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on Friday, amid strong expectations the Fed will cut borrowing costs by a quarter point next month. Lower rates are beneficial for gold as it doesn’t pay interest.

Read more here.