us stocks closed lower tuesday with the sp 500 finishing february with the worst monthly performance since december amid heightened worries over sticky inflation the dow jones industrial average djia closed 07 lower tuesday while the sp 500 spx fell 03 and the technologyheavy nasdaq composite comp edged down 01 according to preliminary data from factset for the month the dow shed 42 while the sp 500 slid 26 and the nasdaq slipped 11 preliminary factset data show stocks sold off in february after bondmarket concerns over stubbornly high inflation sparked a rise in treasury yields information