US close: Stocks close lower in final session of August trading

Wall Street stocks closed slightly lower on Tuesday but the S&P 500 still managed to make August its seventh consecutive winning month.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.11% at 35,360.73, while the S&P 500 was 0.13% weaker at 4,522.68 and the Nasdaq Composite saw out the session 0.04% softer at 15,259.24.

The Dow Jones closed 39.11 points lower on Tuesday, extending losses recorded by the blue-chip index in the previous session.

A number of data points were in focus on Tuesday.

First off, average home prices in major metropolitan areas across the US soared 18.6% year-on-year in June, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller national home price index, the largest annual gain in history. The 10-City composite rose 18.5%, up from 16.6% in the prior month, while the 20-City composite was 19.1% higher year-on-year, up from 17.1% in May. Phoenix, San Diego, and Seattle saw the steepest price increases of the 20 cities in the survey, while prices in every city, except Chicago, were at all-time highs.

Elsewhere, economic activity in the Chicago area deteriorated a little more than expected in August, according to data released on Tuesday. The MNI Chicago business barometer fell to 66.8 from 73.4 in July, missing expectations for a reading of 68.0. This marked the lowest reading since June, after climbing to a two-month high in July.

Lastly, the Conference Board's consumer confidence index declined in August, down almost 12 points from the previous month's print at 113.8, its lowest level since February, driven by fears surrounding the Covid-19 delta variant, as well as rising gas and food prices.

Also in focus, word from the Pentagon that it had finished its evacuation efforts from Kabul's airport, and Hurricane Ida's ravaging of New Orleans.

In the corporate space, Zoom shares were down almost 17% after revealing that second-quarter revenues had slowed despite raising guidance and beating on earnings as a result of the worsening Covid-19 pandemic.

No major earnings released on Tuesday.