US stocks pause at records as investors await more results

NEW YORK: Wall Street stocks paused near record levels early Thursday as investors looked ahead to the next round of earnings reports after major banks mostly bested expectations.

About 25 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up slightly at 26,120.72 after ending above 26,000 for the first time Wednesday.

The broad-based S&P 500 edged up less than 0.1 percent to 2,803.67, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index dipped 0.1 percent to 7,294.37.

Morgan Stanley, the last of the big Wall Street banks to report earnings, shed 0.3 percent as a $1.2 billion charge connected to the US tax reform hit fourth-quarter results. But excluding that one-time item, earnings were 84 cents per share, seven cents above expectations.

JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America were among the other large financial companies to top earnings expectations in reports over the last week.

Earnings season next moves to a wider array of sectors, with IBM reporting Thursday after the closing bell and General Electric releasing results Friday morning.

Walmart advanced 1.8 percent following an upgrade from Goldman Sachs, which praised the retail giant's strategy and said it was likely to enact a "meaningful" dividend hike due to US tax reform.