NEW YORK: Wall Street’s main indexes pared early gains to trade lower on Wednesday, as losses in heavyweight tech stocks outweighed positive earnings across several sectors and rising Treasury yields further pressured equities.
Some megacap stocks declined, weighing on indexes. Meta Platforms, Amazon.com and Nvidia were down between 1.6% and 1.7%.
Yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose and was last at 4.6541%.
Tesla, however, outperformed peers with a 10.3% jump after the electric-vehicle maker allayed growth worries with a prediction that sales would rise this year and said it would roll out more affordable models in early 2025.
Meta, Microsoft and Alphabet are scheduled to report quarterly results later this week.
Cushioning some losses, Texas Instruments climbed 6.4% after the chipmaker forecast second-quarter revenue above analysts’ estimates.
The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose 0.9% as most chip stocks rallied.
With the financial reporting season in full swing, drugmaker Biogen added 4.4% on beating first-quarter profit expectations. And Boston Scientific rose 6.5% after the medical device maker raised its annual profit forecast.
Hasbro climbed 12.1% after the toymaker reported a smaller-than-expected drop in first-quarter sales and handily beat profit estimates.
Wabtec advanced 8.8% after the heavy industrial parts maker raised its full-year profit forecast.
“Investors are turning a bit more cautious despite the fact that the earnings component of the equity market still looks to be holding up okay,” said Brian Nick, senior investment strategist at The Macro Institute.
“It’s not like the floor is falling out from underneath the equity market, but you may see investors increasingly seeing more balance in terms of the opportunity across different asset classes.” US equities had slumped last week as investors turned risk averse amid tensions in the Middle East and more economic data prompted a tuning of rate-cut expectations from the Federal Reserve.
Focus now shifts to the heavily anticipated Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index reading for March, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, due on Friday.
On the day, new orders for key US-manufactured capital goods rose moderately in March and data for the previous month was revised lower, suggesting business spending on equipment was likely sluggish in the first quarter.
At 11:52 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 173.09 points, or 0.45%, at 38,330.60, the S&P 500 was down 16.57 points, or 0.33%, at 5,053.98, and the Nasdaq Composite was down 22.03 points, or 0.14%, at 15,674.61.
Industrials were the worst hit among the 11 S&P 500 sectors, while consumer discretionary was among top gainers.
Solar inverter maker Enphase Energy lost 4.2% after projecting second-quarter revenue below analysts’ estimates.
Declining issues outnumbered advancers for a 2.64-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and for a 1.83-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded nine new 52-week highs and four new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 34 new highs and 73 new lows.
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