US Stocks Close Lower as Nonfarm Payrolls, US-Iran Deal Loom; Storage Names Tumble

BlockBeats, Aug 7 — US stocks closed lower across the board, according to data from BIT (bit.com). The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.85%, the S&P 500 slipped 0.18%, and the Nasdaq dropped 0.06%. Microsoft defied the trend, gaining over 2% to hit its highest level since November last year. Market caution is building ahead of Friday's nonfarm payrolls report. Resurgent geopolitical risk pushed oil prices up more than 3%, reviving inflation concerns and weighing on equities. The storage sector also took a hit. SanDisk and Western Digital both fell sharply even after reporting better-than-expected earnings the previous day. The Roundhill Storage ETF dropped over 4%, Western Digital lost more than 13%, Kioxia ADR and SanDisk each fell over 6%, SK Hynix slipped about 5%, and Micron lost over 1%. AI application software stocks tumbled as well. Datadog and AppLovin each fell more than 19%, EPAM Systems dropped over 15%, and Axon Enterprise declined over 14%.