<body><p>STORY: U.S. stocks ended lower on Wednesday, with Dow virtually flat, the S&P 500 dipping fractionally, while the Nasdaq lost more than half a percent.</p><p>Investors eagerly awaited earnings results after the closing bell from Alphabet and Tesla, the first of the Magnificent Seven megacaps to report.</p><p>Shares of Alphabet, down more than 1% at the close, dipped further in extended trading despite the Google parent topping Wall Street estimates for cloud revenue growth thanks to the AI boom.</p><p>And shares of Tesla, which also closed lower, tumbled another 2.5% in extended trading after Elon Musk's EV maker reported negative free cash flow for the first time in more than two years due to accelerated spending on AI infrastructure, battery capacity, robotaxis and next-generation manufacturing.</p><p>Bob Lang, founder and chief options analyst of Explosive Options, said that strong earnings are needed to keep the market moving higher.</p><p>“The one thing that has been pretty constant here for the past 4 or 5 months for the stock market has been strong earnings and certainly a first quarter brought us about 26, 27% earnings growth. So far in the second quarter, we're seeing it at about 16 to 17%. And that's without some of the big names that have reported for the second quarter yet. We're going to have big names like, Nvidia. We're going to have big names like Micron reporting in September. That's a couple of months away, of course. But you know, we're going to have some of these companies out there that are probably going to report some stellar earnings. And, it's really been the linchpin for keeping the stock market afloat right now.”</p><p>Shares of IBM rose in extended trading after the company cut its annual revenue growth forecast, days after shocking Wall Street with a warning that corporate spending was shifting toward AI-focused data-center gear at the expense of its software and mainframe computers.</p><p>:: ServiceNow Handout</p><p>And shares of ServiceNow, down about 6.5% at the close, rose more than 3% after hours as the company raised its forecast for annual subscription revenue for the second time after beating second-quarter revenue and profit estimates, driven by growing demand for its AI-powered software.</p><p>Among other tech names, shares of Super Micro Computer rallied almost 20%, making it the S&P 500's biggest percentage gainer, a day after the server maker said it had secured more than $60 billion in new orders in its fiscal fourth quarter. </p></body>
