NEW YORK, July 16 (Xinhua) -- U.S. stocks pulled back on Tuesday, after the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 closed at all-time highs for the third consecutive day on Monday, following mixed earnings reports from notable companies.

The Dow ticked down 32.41 points, or 0.21 percent, to 15,451.85 points. The S&P 500 shed 6.24 point, or 0.37 percent, to 1,676.26 points. The Nasdaq Composite Index lost 8.99 points, or 0.25 percent, to 3,598.50 points.

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq snapped an eight-day winning steak.

Goldman Sachs more than doubled its profit in the second quarter of 2013 from the year-ago period. The investment bank reported before Tuesday's opening bell net earnings of 1.93 billion U.S. dollars, or 3.70 dollars per diluted common share, compared with 962 million dollars and 1.78 dollars a year ago. Its net revenues jumped 30 percent year on year to 8.61 billion dollars in the quarter. The results beat analysts' expectations.

Also reporting second-quarter earnings Tuesday are Dow components Coca-Cola and Johnson & Johnson. Coca-Cola's quarterly net income slid 4 percent year-on-year to 2.68 billion dollars and its net operating revenues dipped 3 percent to 12.75 billion dollars, both missing market expectations. Meanwhile, Johnson & Johnson's quarterly profit missed analysts' forecast but its sales came in better than estimates.

Yahoo posted mixed quarterly earning shortly after the closing bell, with its earnings beating market forecasts and revenue missing analysts' estimates.

According to Thomson Reuters data, second-quarter earnings from S&P 500 companies are expected to have increased 2.8 percent from last year, while revenue is forecast to have risen 1.5 percent from a year ago.

Kansas City Fed President Esther George said on Tuesday that it is time to begin to adjust the Federal Reserve's massive bond- buying program.

Investors are also keeping a close eye on Bernanke's testimony to the U.S. Congress scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday to get any hint about the quantitative easing.

The economic data came in generally positive on Tuesday but failed to push the market higher as investors chose to take profit after the equity market posted impressive performances recently.

U.S. builder confidence in the market for newly built, single- family homes rose to 57 in July, the strongest reading since January of 2006, according to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index released Tuesday.

Moreover, U.S. industrial production increased 0.3 percent in June after having been unchanged in May, according to the Federal Reserve. "Manufacturing output grew in the last month of the quarter, but not enough to prevent a small decline in the quarter as a whole. The trend in manufacturing is lackluster as exports disappoint and business equipment investment is tepid," FTN Financial Chief Economist Christopher Low commented in a note on Tuesday.

Low added: "Still, faster production growth at the end of the quarter is encouraging. A modest improvement in Q3 is likely."

The U.S. consumer price index for June jumped 0.5 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis, mainly due to a sharp rise in gasoline prices, the U.S. Labor Department reported Tuesday.