NEW YORK: US stocks closed mostly flat on Wednesday (April 19) following another day of mixed company results.
The markets have been digesting quarterly earnings from the biggest American banks, with Morgan Stanley reporting a sharp decline in profits earlier in the day. The Wall Street bank’s shares ended the day up 0.7%.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 79.62 points, or 0.23%, to 33,897.01; the S&P 500 lost 0.35 points, or 0.01%, at 4,154.52; and the Nasdaq Composite added 3.81 points, or 0.03%, at 12,157.23.
The Dow was weighed down by declines in Walt Disney Co and UnitedHealth Group Inc shares following results from rivals in their respective industries.
Major equity indices have been largely stable during the early stages of a first-quarter earnings season that investors expect to show tepid results.
“Corporate results are being seen as being in large part company-specific news versus market news,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B Riley Wealth. “If that keeps us relatively calm and unchanged for now, while the sample set of reporters is still quite small, I think that’s a positive.”
The flat financial markets were a reflection of the “pretty mixed” earnings results over the last few days, said Maris Ogg from Tower Bridge Advisors. “We’ll see what happens when we really start getting the regional banks next week,“ she added.
Investors are looking for signs in corporate results that inflation may be driving up costs or hurting consumer spending, amid fears the economy may be on the cusp of a downturn.
S&P 500 companies overall are expected to post a 4.8% decline in first-quarter earnings from the year-earlier period, according to Refinitiv IBES.
“We seem stuck in this range, with those people who think that there is going to be a recession coming and those people who think there is going to be a soft landing,” said Rick Meckler, partner at Cherry Lane Investments.
Netflix Inc shares slid 3.2% after the video-streaming pioneer offered a lighter-than-expected forecast. Shares of streaming rival Disney slipped 2.2%.
Tesla Inc shares dropped 2% after the electric-vehicle maker’s sixth US price cut this year. Tesla shares slid further in initial after-market trading on Wednesday following the company’s quarterly report. – AFP, Reuters