NEW YORK: Wall Street stocks declined early Thursday amid jitters over the prospects for higher interest rates and despite a trove of largely solid corporate earnings.
After surging in the first four weeks of the year, US stocks have been weighed down this week by worries over higher US Treasury bond yields and concerns that steepening US interest rates could stymie growth.
About 15 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 26,075.39, down 0.3 percent.
The broad-based S&P 500 dipped 0.2 percent to 2,818.14, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 0.3 percent to 7,386.49.
Facebook jumped 2.6 percent after reporting a 20 percent rise in fourth-quarter profits to $4.3 billion as ad revenue and the ranks of users grew.
Microsoft edged up 0.2 percent after reporting a 12 percent rise in quarterly revenues to $28.9 billion thanks to gains in business services and cloud computing. But one-time charges connected to US tax reform and the repatriation of overseas profits led to a $6.3 billion loss.
Big tech will be in the headlines again with earnings reports from the other dominant forces in the sector, Apple, Amazon and Google-parent Alphabet, due after the market closes.
Other companies that reported results fell, including UPS, which shed 5.8 percent and Qualcomm, which lost 1.6 percent.
Analysts also are looking ahead to Friday’s US jobs report for January, which is expected to show the economy added 180,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate held steady at 4.1 percent.
Source: Brecorder.com
