Wall St ends lower as chip weakness offsets solid earnings, data

STORY: Wall Street's main indexes ended lower on Thursday, with the Dow dropping two-tenths of a percent, the S&P 500 shedding about half a percent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq losing almost one-and-a-half percent.Chip stocks tumbled despite bellwether TSMC posting a 77% jump in quarterly profit, it's shares falling more than 2%.Mel Casey, senior portfolio manager at FBB Capital Partners, said the pullback demonstrated the lofty expectations for a sector that has soared by nearly 70% so far this year. "You just have so many investors in the same trade here and really banking on every little component of the value chain, like, humming along at maximum pace. And so anything that's a little bit shy of, say, the whisper, or anything that's as good as expected but not better than expected is seen almost as a disappointment. And so that's what you're seeing today. But there's nothing you could really point to in the Taiwan Semi report to feel bearish about."Memory-chip makers were among the biggest laggards, with SanDisk, Western Digital, Seagate Technology and Intel down between about five-and-a-half and twelve-and-a-half percent.:: NetflixElsewhere in the market, shares of Netflix tumbled more than 7% in extended trading after the streaming giant's third-quarter revenue and earnings projections hovered below Wall Street targets. The company also said it would reduce the amount of information it discloses about consumers' viewing hours as it seeks new avenues of growth.Shares of UnitedHealth Group closed higher after the company beat Wall Street earnings estimates and hiked its 2026 forecast.But shares of United Airlines fell as surging oil prices weighed on its forward guidance.Meanwhile, generally upbeat economic data on Thursday showed solid core retail sales, a drop in jobless claims and surging manufacturing activity in the Northeast.