Investing.com - Wall Street was under pressure heading into close Tuesday as utilities and semiconductor stocks sagged, while tech remained pressured by a slump in CenturyLink .
Semiconductor stocks were under pressure after Raymond James downgraded the sector, which it had said had entered a cyclical downturn, following a meeting with a number of handset, networking and PC supply chain stakeholders.
"Most importantly, it seems the suppliers with the shortest lead times appear to be seeing the downtick first. Conversely, products with longer lead times have yet to be impacted," Raymond James said.
The bank downgraded a cohort of semiconductor stocks, including Monolithic Power Systems (NASDAQ:MPWR) and Intel (NASDAQ:INTC), but maintained its outlook on Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) and Qorvo (NASDAQ:QRVO), unchanged on expectations for long-term growth and favorable company-specific trends, respectively.
Elsewhere, Amazon offered investors some refuge from the weakness in tech, which was weighed down by sharp slump in Centurylink.
Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) rose nearly 2% after an analyst at Jefferies suggested Tuesday that the e-commerce giant could see its shares surge to $3,000 by 2020, driven by strong growth in the company's Prime, cloud and advertising businesses.
CenturyLink (NYSE:CTL) fell 7% after the company revealed on Monday that Chief Financial Officer Sunit Patel had resigned after accepting an executive leadership role at another company, though analysts continued to tout optimism.
"We remain confident that Centurylink is on track for margin and synergy realization, though recognize perception has likely capped the stock for a few quarters," Oppenheimer said.
Rising bonds yields, meanwhile, prompted investors to shun dividend-heavy sectors such as utilities, which fell more than 1%, weighing on the broader market.
Bond yields have hit a rich vein of form as the benchmark 10-year Treasury yields rose to their highest since May, on expectations for Fed interest rate hike Wednesday.
Nike (NYSE:NKE) rose 0.80% ahead of its earnings report after the closing bell. The sportswear giant is up over the 35% year to date and leads the top gainers on the Dow so far this year.