By Yasin Ebrahim

Investing.com — The S&P 500 slumped Thursday as a wave of mostly better-than-expected quarterly results from major Wall Street banks failed to lift investor sentiment as tech stocks resumed their trend lower.

While the fell 0.533%, it was still up 0.2% or 101 points, while the declined 1.4%.

Goldman Sachs, one of the largest Wall Street banks, is (NYSE:) Morgan Stanley (NYSE:), Citigroup Inc (NYSE: ) announced first quarter results that exceeded analysts’ expectations. However Wells Fargo (NYSE): fell over 5% following a quarter-end report that showed a decrease in quarterly reports.

Rising Treasury yields have caused a fall in bank stock prices. This tends to increase the banks’ margins of lending. Investors bet that the Federal Reserve will tighten monetary policy to reduce inflation.

The rapid increase in yields is putting growth segments of the market at the center of attention, while big tech leads the decline.

Apple (NASDAQ 🙂 declined 2%. Alphabet, Amazon.com (NASDAQ :), Microsoft (NASDAQ 🙂 and Meta Platforms were all down more than 1 %.

Twitter (NYSE:) turned negative as many doubt that Tesla (NASDAQ:) chief executive Elon Musk’s $54.20 a share offer to take the social media company private will succeed.

“In our view, the deal does not get done at this level, and Twitter’s Board will not view this offer, or Mr. Musk leading a change in the company as in the best interest of the company or shareholders,” Wedbush said in a note..

UnitedHealth Group (NYSE) Group, a key Dow component, saw an intraday gain of 0.5% following better than expected quarterly results and an increase to full-year guidance.

The energy sector saw a slight increase of 1%. This was due to rising oil prices and fears over tightening supplies. Russia and Ukraine are set for a major land war in Eastern Ukraine.

The economic outlook was mixed. Data showed that the economy had declined more than forecast, while investors were surprised by the recent report which highlighted the effects of inflation on consumers.

Economists still remain optimistic on the strength consumer and cite the extra savings built up over the pandemic.  

“[W]e remain quite constructive on the outlook, because of the combination of excess savings and robust wage growth, particularly in the bottom half of the income distribution” {{Jefferies said in a note.}}

Peloton Interactive (NASDAQ:) lost more than 4.4% following a reduction in the price of the Tread and Bike machines. The company also raised the monthly cost for on-demand content to help it regain its user growth.