Wall Street falls as Middle East concerns offset earnings optimism

STORY: U.S. stocks ended lower on Tuesday, with the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq all shedding more than half a percent.Early gains evaporated as renewed concerns about the Middle East war outweighed initial optimism over a round of solid corporate earnings.Meanwhile, investors closely monitored the Senate's confirmation hearing for Kevin Warsh, President Donald Trump's nominee to lead the Federal Reserve.Carol Schleif is chief market strategist at BMO Wealth Management."I think investors are really trying to figure out what to focus on, because you have the hearing going on for Kevin Warsh as chair of the new Fed, so you've got commentary surrounding that. You've also had some flip-flops. I saw news recently that perhaps JD Vance is not going to Islamabad to negotiate, so you've had markets trying to figure out, should they worry about the war, should they move on beyond conflict in the Middle East? And actually what we'd prefer they focus on is earnings, because earnings season, we're early on yet and there's a lot of positive things and constructive things to pull out of earnings season."Optimism around upbeat earnings and AI led J.P. Morgan on Tuesday to raise its year-end target for the S&P 500 to 7,600.Among the day's stock moves, Exxon Mobile and Chevron both edged higher, as another jump in crude prices made energy the only gainer among the S&P 500's 11 major sectors.Shares of UnitedHealth jumped 7% after the healthcare conglomerate raised its annual profit forecast and beat Wall Street expectations for the first quarter.And shares of Apple slid 2.5% after the iPhone maker a day earlier said CEO Tim Cook would hand over the reins to the company's longtime hardware chief, John Ternus.