US equity markets retreated and settled near their session lows after Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Richard Clarida made a case for a potential slowing of the central bank’s large-scale asset bond purchases later this year and for higher interest rates in 2023 - Dow dropped -324-points or -0.92% . The broader S&P500 fell -0.46% a day after notching its 42nd record closing high of 2021. Energy (down -2.93%) led nine of the eleven primary sectors lower following a third straight session of declines on crude markets. Communication Services (up +0.24%) and Information Technology (+0.19%) were the only primary sectors to advance. The technology-centric Nasdaq added +0.13%. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Inc rallied +5.52% (to US$118.77) and logged its sixth consecutive record closing high (and carved out a record intra-day high of US$122.49) following continued indications that the chip maker is taking market share away from larger rival Intel Corp (down -0.30%). Data from Mercury Research showed that while total microprocessor shipments had declined 3.1% quarter-over-quarter, AMD’s total share of the market increased to 16.9% in the second quarter from 16.1% in the first quarter. Meanwhile, Intel’s share fell to 83.1% in the second quarter from 83.9% in the first quarter. The Mercury Research data also showed gains for AMD in the important data-centre category. AMD has 8.9% share in servers, up from 5.5% in the year-ago second quarter and 8.2% in this year’s first quarter. That’s compared with Intel’s 91.1% share, down from 94.5% in the year-ago second quarter and 91.8% in the first quarter. A separate report from tech news site wccftech.com noted that AMD CPUs are still outselling Intel, according to data compiled from MindFactory, Germany’s largest tech retailer. The small capitalisation Russell 2000 fell -1.23%.