* Indexes fall slightly as investors await earnings

* Domino's Pizza gains after Q2 revenue beat

* Alphabet rises after report that it is building new AI

chips

* Alphabet, Tesla and Intel ( INTC ) to report earnings later in the

week

(Updates with preliminary closing prices)

By Sinéad Carew and Ragini Mathur

July 20 (Reuters) - The S&P 500 finished slightly lower on

Monday while investors looked for moves toward Middle East

de-escalation while they waited for earnings reports due from

major technology companies later in the week.

The second-quarter earnings season will pick up the pace this

week, with results due from big names like Alphabet,

Tesla and Intel ( INTC ), broadening out the picture

they provide of the health of corporate America after a week of

results mostly from the financial sector.

"Everybody is waiting for earnings season to really get going,"

said Peter Tuz, president of Chase Investment Counsel, and he

noted that investors may be "kind of sitting on their hands"

ahead of results from sectors such as technology, energy and

consumer-facing businesses.

Meanwhile, Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis said on Monday that they

were imposing a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia, opening a new

front in the U.S.-Iran war and widening the threat to global

energy supplies and trade beyond the Gulf. But a senior Iranian

official told Reuters that mediators have passed Iran a proposal

to de-escalate the war with the U.S. that would offer a 10-day

ceasefire to find ways to revive an interim deal reached last

month.

After more than a week of bombing in the region, Joe

Quinlan, head of CIO market strategy for Merrill and BofA

Private Bank, said that investors were anxious for any efforts

toward a Middle East resolution that could potentially re-open

the Strait of Hormuz and improve oil supplies and prices.

"The hope is if you get some type of resolution - less bombing,

more talk in the Middle East - that oil prices and gasoline

prices would not go as high as we saw earlier this year and

therefore, alleviate some of that pressure on consumer prices,"

Quinlan said, also suggesting that investors were preparing for

earnings.

Markets are expecting S&P 500 earnings growth of 26% for the

second quarter year on year, up from an earlier estimate of

23.7%, according to data compiled by LSEG.

In particular, investors will monitor results from chipmakers

such as Intel ( INTC ) and Texas Instruments ( TXN ) for any encouraging

signs after the Philadelphia SE Semiconductor Index ended

Friday more than 20% below its late-June record high, confirming

a bear-market decline.

According to preliminary data, the S&P 500 lost 13.50

points, or 0.18%, to end at 7,444.19 points, while the Nasdaq

Composite lost 9.98 points, or 0.04%, to 25,510.27. The

Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 297.46 points, or

0.57%, to 51,848.96.

In individual stocks, Alphabet rose after a report that its

Google unit is developing a Gemini-integrated server chip aimed

at improving AI efficiency and easing computing-capacity

constraints.

Among other individual movers, Domino's Pizza shares

rose after the pizza chain's quarterly revenue edged past Wall

Street estimates.