While the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq closed the session modestly down, the blue-chip Dow was pushed into positive territory by UnitedHealth Group shares in the wake of its earnings report
Wall Street wavered to a mixed close on Tuesday as increasing U.S. Treasury yields and elevated geopolitical concerns offset a generally positive string of first-quarter corporate results.
While the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq closed the session modestly down, the blue-chip Dow was pushed into positive territory by UnitedHealth Group shares in the wake of its earnings report.
But stocks were held in check by benchmark Treasury yields jumping to new five-month highs due to dimming expectations of an interest rate reduction from the U.S. Fed.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell said on Tuesday it will likely take the central bank longer than expected to become confident that inflation is declining, due to a run of disappointing data.
We are into earns season, where on any particular day, depending on who’s reporting, you will get some ripples, according to Chuck Carlson CEO at Horizon Investment Services in Hammond, Indiana. Second, there’s the continuing overhang of Middle East concerns weighing on decisions whether to buy or not, and third, you have got investors trying to assess the apparent reacceleration of inflation.
With first-quarter earnings season underway, upbeat results from UnitedHealth as well as Morgan Stanley offset BoA’s and Johnson & Johnson’s respective profit drop and revenue miss.
I expect the market to begin to buy again, but in the near term geopolitical concerns are outweighing the strength of the U.S. economy, according to Tim Ghriskey, senior portfolio strategist Ingalls & Snyder in New York. You need strong earnings to keep this rally moving.
The DJIA added 63.66 points, or 0.17%, to 37,798.77; the S&P 500 shed 10.44 points, or 0.21%, to 5,051.38; and the Nasdaq Composite declined 19.77 points, or 0.12%, to 15,865.25.
European shares notched their biggest single-day percentage decline in more than nine months as rising anxieties over the Middle East conflict dampened investor risk appetite.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index shed 1.53% and MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe lost 0.77%.
