U.S. shares lower at close of trade; Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0.24%

Investing.com – U.S. equities were lower at the close on Tuesday, as losses in the Oil & Gas , Financials and Basic Materials sectors propelled shares lower.

At the close in NYSE, the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.24%, while the S&P 500 index declined 0.12%, and the NASDAQ Composite index declined 0.11%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were Verizon Communications Inc (NYSE: VZ ), which rose 1.94% or 0.88 points to trade at 46.20 at the close. 3M Company (NYSE: MMM ) added 0.88% or 1.77 points to end at 202.44 and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT ) was up 0.64% or 0.45 points to 70.41 in late trade.

Biggest losers included Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE: GS ), which lost 1.96% or 4.36 points to trade at 218.42 in late trade. JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE: JPM ) declined 1.71% or 1.46 points to end at 83.90 and Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX ) shed 0.63% or 0.66 points to 104.06.

The top performers on the S&P 500 were First Solar Inc (NASDAQ: FSLR ) which rose 7.22% to 39.50, BorgWarner Inc (NYSE: BWA ) which was up 3.28% to settle at 42.19 and Micron Technology Inc (NASDAQ: MU ) which gained 3.19% to close at 30.71.

The worst performers were Kinder Morgan Inc (NYSE: KMI ) which was down 4.31% to 18.42 in late trade, Southwestern Energy Company (NYSE: SWN ) which lost 3.93% to settle at 6.35 and Devon Energy Corporation (NYSE: DVN ) which was down 3.71% to 34.49 at the close.

The top performers on the NASDAQ Composite were LiNiu Technology Group (NASDAQ: LINU ) which rose 109.62% to 0.440, Yield10 Bioscience Inc (NASDAQ: YTEN ) which was up 60.28% to settle at 6.331 and Protagonist Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ: PTGX ) which gained 43.80% to close at 11.82.

The worst performers were DragonWave Inc (NASDAQ: DRWI ) which was down 23.58% to 0.8100 in late trade, Spi Energy Co Ltd (NASDAQ: SPI ) which lost 17.87% to settle at 1.05 and Celsion Corp (NASDAQ: CLSN ) which was down 16.40% to 2.692 at the close.

Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 2007 to 1219 and 39 ended unchanged; on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange, 1673 fell and 849 advanced, while 98 ended unchanged on the New York Stock Exchange.

The CBOE Volatility Index , which measures the implied volatility of S&P 500 options, was up 5.20% to 10.32.

In commodities trading, Gold Futures for June delivery was down 0.42% or 5.31 to $1262.79 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in July fell 0.60% or 0.30 to hit $49.50 a barrel, while the August Brent oil contract fell 1.04% or 0.55 to trade at $52.09 a barrel.

EUR/USD was up 0.23% to 1.1192, while USD/JPY fell 0.43% to 110.78.

The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.14% at 97.19.