Major benchmarks ended Tuesday's session mixed, as a major sell-off pushed the Dow and S&P 500 lower while the Nasdaq rose as investors returned to tech trading amid uncertainty. Concerns over increased coronavirus infections both domestically and aboard made market participants less willing to make risker bets. Investors were also concerned about the upcoming U.S. presidential election and the fate of additional fiscal stimulus. Late on Monday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that the Senate would be recessed until Nov.9, thus ending all hopes for near-term stimulus.

Meanwhile, the Conference Board's consumer confidence index reading for October posted a surprise decline from September's reading of 101.3, coming in at 100.9 for the month. The Conference Board's Senior Director of Economic Indicators Lynn Franco stated that: "There is little to suggest that consumers foresee the economy gaining momentum in the final months of 2020, especially with COVID-19 cases on the rise and unemployment still high."

Here's how the market settled on Tuesday:

S&P 500 Index (SPY  ): -0.30% or -10.29 points to 3,390.68

Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA  ): -0.80% or -222.19 points to 27,463.19

Nasdaq Composite Index (QQQ  ): +0.64% or +72.41 points to 11,431.35

For Major Stock News, AMD (AMD  ) shares declined after the company announced it agreed to purchase Xilinx (XLNX  ) in a $35 billion all-stock deal. Shares of Xilinx closed over 8% higher. Reopening trades extended Monday's losses, with airline, cruise line and resort stocks all falling lower. Investors instead rallied behind stay-at-home stocks like Amazon (AMZN  ), Shopify (SHOP  ) and Zoom Video (ZM  ).

For Sector Performance, most industries dropped amid Tuesday's mixed trading session. Industrials (XLI  ) was the worst-performer, followed by other cyclicals like Financials (XLF  ), Energy (XLE  ) and Real Estate (XLRE  ) all falling over 1%. Only three sectors gained on Tuesday, with Information Technology (XLK  ), Communication Services (XLC  ) and Consumer Discretionary (XLY  ) all increasing over 0.5%.

For Commodities and Currency, the U.S. Dollar (UUP  ) slipped on Tuesday as investors took some profits from recent gains and concerns about a second wave of the coronavirus and the upcoming U.S. presidential election continued to harm risk sentiment. The dollar index lowered 0.2% to 92.92. Gold (GLD  ) climbed slightly higher on Tuesday as the dollar weakened and investors looked for a safe haven amid market uncertainty. Spot gold rose 0.4% to $1,909.58 per ounce, while gold futures settled 0.3% higher to $1,911.90 per ounce. Crude oil futures rebounded on Tuesday as multiple U.S. oil producers halted operations ahead of the approaching storm in the Gulf of Mexico, lessoning demand and oversupply fears surrounding the coronavirus pandemic. International benchmark Brent Crude (BNO  ) increased 1.4% to $41.03 per barrel, while West Texas Intermediate (USO  ) rose 2.6% to $39.57 per barrel. Both contracts fell more than 3% on Monday.

For the mid-week, trader will continue to react to coronavirus and U.S. presidential election headlines. Companies like Boeing (BA  ), Mastercard (MA  ) and Visa (V  ) are also slated to report quarterly earnings.