U.S. stocks closed down Tuesday, as investors considered a batch of mixed corporate results. In U.S. economic news, the Consumer Price Index increased 0.5 percent in June, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Economists had expected the government's key inflation measure to rise 0.3 percent. Builder confidence continued to improve for the third consecutive month in July, rising to the highest level since January 2006, according to the National Association of Home Builders and Wells Fargo Housing Market index. In corporate news, Goldman Sachs shares fell even after the Wall Street firm said that its quarterly earnings doubled from a year earlier, with a boost from investment banking. Coca-Cola shares slipped after the company reported a drop in profit from a year earlier due to weak European sales. Johnson & Johnson announced a jump in quarterly sales but a decline in earnings. Shares of Baidu, China's leading search engine, climbed after the company signed a $1.9 billion deal to acquire NetDragon, a Chinese online gaming company. The dollar lost ground against the euro, the pound, and the yen. Light sweet crude oil for August delivery dropped 32 cents to $106.00 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold futures gained $6.90 to $1,290.40 an ounce. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 32.41, or 0.21 percent, to 15,451.85. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 6.24, or 0.37 percent, to 1,676.26. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index dropped 8.99, or 0.25 percent, to 3,598.50.
