By Jon Sindreu 
   -- Fed Chairman Powell set to testify before U.S. Senate 
 
   -- Tech stocks down 
 
   -- Goldman Sachs shares slide after revenue miss, despite strong profit 

U.S. stocks edged down Tuesday ahead of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's Senate testimony, as Wall Street dissected companies' latest earnings results.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 65 points, or 0.3%, to 24999. The S&P 500 declined 0.3% and the tech-focused Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.5%.

Shares of Goldman Sachs, the latest large U.S. bank to release second-quarter earnings, slid 0.7% shortly after the market opened. Despite reporting strong profits, Goldman's revenue fell below analysts' expectations. The firm also said David Solomon would succeed Lloyd Blankfein as chief executive starting Oct. 1.

Meanwhile, Netflix reported weaker-than-expected subscriber numbers late Monday, pulling its shares down 13%.

Big tech giants have been key in driving stock-market gains in 2018, and investors are looking for signs that their customer growth is in line with optimistic expectations. Shares of Facebook and Google-parent Alphabet both shed 0.5%.

So far, the second-quarter earnings season is off to a broadly positive start, even though companies have a high bar to beat: Analysts expect earnings for S&P 500 companies to grow 21% compared with a year earlier, according to data provider FactSet.

"There's no reason to expect anything but impressive headline numbers," said Emiel van den Heiligenberg, head of asset allocation at Legal & General Asset Management. "While solid earnings growth will not come as a big surprise to most investors, it should provide a positive backdrop to markets in the coming weeks at a time where sentiment seems neutral to slightly bearish."

Investors' focus for the day is on Mr. Powell's testimony before the Senate Banking Committee, where he will deliver his semiannual monetary policy report. He is expected to give further clues on how fast the Fed is likely to keep nudging interest rates up, with derivatives markets currently pricing in a 62% chance that rates will rise at least twice more this year, according to data by CME Group.

"The prepared remarks are not particularly hawkish on monetary policy, although more details may emerge from the Q&A session," analysts at Italian bank UniCredit told clients Tuesday. "All in all, we do not expect major changes in U.S. yields, but if this were to materialize it would be in the direction of higher yields."

Money managers are especially focused on whether short-term yields continue to rise at a faster pace than longer-term ones, since a so-called inverted yield curve has historically been a bellwether for recessions.

"If the Fed effectively commits a policy mistake by tightening significantly in 2019, at some point in 2020 things are going to get a little challenging, but the Fed is acutely aware of that outcome, so at the first sign of things getting a bit soft, it's going to pause," said Krishna Memani, chief investment officer at OppenheimerFunds.

Oil prices steadied after steep losses Monday, when U.S. crude settled down 4.2%, dragging down the stock market. On Tuesday, it fell 1% to $67.35 a barrel.

The oil market has been buffeted by expectations of supply increases from Libya, Russia and other producers, as well as worries that weaker global economic growth will lower demand for commodities.

The Stoxx Europe 600 fell 0.2% in afternoon European trade. In Asia, Japan's Nikkei Stock Average closed up 0.4%, helped by a weak yen, but Hong Kong's Hang Seng and the Shanghai Composite slumped 1.3% and 0.6%, respectively.

Write to Jon Sindreu at jon.sindreu@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 17, 2018 10:05 ET (14:05 GMT)