US benchmark equity indexes ended lower Wednesday as a sell-off in tech stocks weighed on the broad market and as investors assessed the latest remarks by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

* Nvidia (NVDA) shares slumped 7.7%. The chip-making giant said late Tuesday that it expects to take up to a $5.5 billion first-quarter charge as the US government requires a license to export H20 integrated circuits to China and "D:5 countries."

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) said the government's new licensing requirement also applies to its MI308 products, and may result in charges of up to $800 million. AMD shares tumbled 7.5%.

Apple (AAPL), Amazon.com (AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT), Tesla (TSLA), Meta Platforms (META), and Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) were also lower.

* Powell said tariffs are "highly likely" to generate at least a temporary increase in inflation, though price pressures could be more persistent.

"We may find ourselves in the challenging scenario in which our dual-mandate goals are in tension," Powell said. "If that were to occur, we would consider how far the economy is from each goal, and the potentially different time horizons over which those respective gaps would be anticipated to close."

* Retail sales in the US rose in line with Wall Street's expectations in March, led by the motor vehicle component, data from the Census Bureau showed.

"Consumers scrambled to buy cars and trucks ahead of anticipated price increases driven by tariffs," Jefferies said. "The data show good signs of demand across most other categories of goods as well."

* May West Texas Intermediate crude oil closed up $1.34 to settle at $62.67 per barrel, while June Brent crude, the global benchmark, was last seen up $1.34 to $66.01 as the Trump Administration issued new sanctions on a Chinese independent refinery said to have purchased more than US$1 billion of Iranian oil.

* Abbott Laboratories (ABT) affirmed its full-year outlook as the healthcare company reported first-quarter earnings above market expectations. Its shares were up 2.9%.