Stocks falter as earnings disappoint and focus shifts to Fed and inflation.

The Dow led declines among US stock indexes on Tuesday after quarterly updates from Goldman Sachs and Johnson & Johnson stoked investor worries about the outlook for corporate earnings amid concerns of a recession. S&P 500 company earnings are expected to decline 4.8% in the first quarter from a year earlier, according to Refinitiv IBES data, a slight improvement from the 5.2% decline forecast last week. The CBOE Volatility index, also known as Wall Street's fear gauge, edged up to 16.96 after hitting an over one-year low earlier.