U.S. markets ended in red on Tuesday, amid renewed pressure on companies linked to artificial intelligence infrastructure after a report indicated that OpenAI has recently fallen short of its internal targets for user growth and revenue. Sentiments remained subdued amid geopolitical uncertainty as the Trump administration seems unlikely to accept Iran's proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the war. However, losses remained capped as the Conference Board released a report showing an unexpected improvement in U.S. consumer confidence in April. The Conference Board said its consumer confidence index crept up to 92.8 in April from an upwardly revised 92.2 in March. Street had expected the consumer confidence index to drop to 89.4 from the 91.8 originally reported for the previous month. On the sectoral front, gold-related stocks faced sharp selling pressure following a steep drop by the price of the precious metal, dragging the NYSE Arca Gold Bugs Index down by around 5%. Semiconductor stocks also came under heavy pressure, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index tumbling 4.7%. Computer hardware, networking and airline stocks are also seeing considerable weakness, while oil and natural gas stocks have moved to the upside.

Nasdaq declined 223.30 points or 0.9 percent to 24,663.799, and S&P 500 slipped 35.11 points or 0.49 percent to 7,138.8, and Dow Jones Industrial Average decreased 25.86 points or 0.05 percent to 49,141.93.