NEW YORK: US stocks were under pressure Tuesday as cash-strapped Greece's efforts to get a debt writedown from the private sector down and a mixed bag of US company earnings dented market sentiment.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 36.63 points (0.29 percent) to 12,672.19 at 1545 GMT.
The tech-rich Nasdaq Composite edged down 0.22 point (0.01 percent) to 2,783.95, while the broad-based S&P 500 lost 4.07 points (0.31 percent) to 1,311.93.
"Losses came after a meeting of euro-area finance chiefs finished with little progress on (the) Greek debt-swap deal," said Wells Fargo Advisors analysts in a research note.
"In particular, Germany and the International Monetary Fund argued that Greece's private creditors should agree to receive average interest rates of less than 4.0 percent in the planned restructuring" of Greek debt, they said.
Investors also kept an eye on the opening of a two-day policy meeting of the Federal Reserve. The Federal Open Market Committee was expected to keep ultra-low interest rates unchanged.
Earnings results were mixed, with chemicals giant DuPont reporting a slight fall in fourth-quarter profit. The blue-chip Dow member slipped 0.2 percent.
Another Dow member, pharmaceuticals and health-care company Johnson & Johnson, posted a decline in profit for the full year that steepened in the final quarter. J&J shares rose 0.5 percent.
McDonald's fell 1.4 percent after announcing an 11 percent rise in quarterly earnings. The fast-food giant said it plans to invest about $2.9 billion this year, half of it for opening more than 1,300 new restaurants and the remainder for renovation of existing ones.
Bonds prices were flat. The yield on the 10-year Treasury was unchanged at 2.07 percent from Monday, while the 30-year slipped to 3.16 percent from 3.17 percent.
Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions.
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