NEW YORK: US stocks gave up early gains in late morning trading on Monday, with losses in GE and technology shares weighing on the Wall Street indexes.
General Electric tumbled 5.4 percent after a bunch of brokerages cut their price targets on the stock, citing higher chances of a dividend cut at the industrial conglomerate.
The FAANG stocks – Facebook, Amazon, Apple , Netflix and Alphabet – slipped about 1 percent, keeping the Nasdaq in the red.
Still, the indexes were near their all-time highs on a steady stream of upbeat third-quarter earnings and hopes that President Donald Trump’s tax plans may move forward after the Senate’s approval of a budget resolution on Friday.
Nearly three-quarters of the 97 S&P 500 companies that have reported earnings so far have beaten expectations.
“Earnings is the dominant theme of the market, with talks of tax reforms swirling around on the outside,” said Michael Antonelli, managing director of institutional sales trading at Robert W. Baird in Milwaukee.
“It’s going to be all about corporate commentary and how they are looking at things in the next three to six months.”
World stocks were lifted to an all-time high after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s election victory raised hopes of continued market friendly monetary policies and economic reforms.
Investors are also waiting for news on the next Federal Reserve chief. Trump said he would make his choice to lead the Fed soon and was still considering at least three people: Fed Governor Jerome Powell, Stanford University economist John Taylor and Yellen.
At 11:11 a.m. ET (1511 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 23.75 points, or 0.1 percent, at 23,352.38, the S&P 500 was down 0.3 points, or 0.01 percent, at 2,574.91 and the Nasdaq Composite was down 13.42 points, or 0.2 percent, at 6,615.63.
Seven of the 11 major S&P indexes were lower, led by losses in the industrial index.
Arconic slumped 7.2 percent after the US specialty metals maker named a GE veteran as chief executive.
Hasbro dipped nearly 10 percent after the toymaker’s forecast for the holiday season fell below estimates as Toys’R’Us bankruptcy began to hurt its operations. Shares of Mattel also fell 3.44 percent.
Declining issues outnumbered advancers on the NYSE by 1,570 to 1,186. On the Nasdaq, 1,668 issues fell and 1,092 advanced.
Source: Brecorder.com
