Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., July 19, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
NEW YORK: US stocks were little changed in early trading on Thursday after the S&P and the Nasdaq touched all-time highs as earnings from some big names disappointed.
Qualcomm fell 4.4% after the chipmaker’s forecast missed estimates.
Cigarette maker Philip Morris was down 2.8% after its quarterly profit came in below expectations.
Home Depot was off 2.7% and weighed on the Dow and the S&P.
Still, overall earnings continue to beat expectations which, along with a rally in technology shares, helped all three major indexes to close at a record high on Wednesday.
Analysts are estimating an 8.7% rise in second-quarter earnings and a 4.6% increase in revenue for the S&P 500 companies from a year earlier, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Visa, eBay, Capital One Financial are due to report results after the closing bell.
“The surge in stock prices is showing no signs of letting up as corporate America’s earnings power continue to expand,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at First Standard Financial.
“The mostly better-than-expected results are lifting investors’ confidence - a basic fundamental positive for equities markets.”
The S&P 500 tech sector, which has been the best performing sector this year, broke its previous record closing high that had held since March 2000 in the midst of the dot-com and Y2K tech stocks bubble.
Microsoft will report results after the market close. Other major tech names such as Alphabet, Facebook and Amazon are due to report results next week.
At 9:48am ET (1348 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 10.05 points, or 0.05%, at 21,630.7, and the S&P 500 was up 0.87 point, or 0.03%, at 2,474.70.
The Nasdaq Composite was down 1.25 points, or 0.02%, at 6,383.79.
Seven of the 11 major S&P sectors were higher, with the energy index’s 0.53% rise leading the advancers.
Economic data showed weekly jobless claims fell to a five-month low.
Claims fell to 233,000, below the 245,000 expected by economists polled by Reuters.
American Express fell 1.1% after the card company’s profit declined 33% in the second quarter.
Abbott Laboratories rose 1.9% after the healthcare company raised its full-year profit forecast.
Property and casualty insurer Travelers was down 2.5% after reporting a drop in quarterly profit.
T-Mobile was up 1.1% after the wireless carrier’s quarterly results topped analysts’ estimates.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by 1,383 to 1,168. On the Nasdaq, 1,172 issues fell and 1,167 advanced. - Reuters
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