NEW YORK (Reuters) – Major Wall Street indices slipped Friday, dragging down losses in blue-disc technology, making Intel and IBM reliable after their quarterly results, as hopes for a full economic reopening in the coming months dull.
IBM Corp fell 9.83% and was the biggest draw on the Dow Jones industrial average after missing quarterly revenue estimates, hit by a rare decline in sales in its software unit.
Intel Corp shook off 8.93% as new CEO Pat Gelsinger’s post-earnings remarks point to the lack of a strong embrace of outsourcing.
“The challenge for the (technology) industry at this stage of the earnings season is how many of their expectations for earnings growth have been reached by 2020 and may not be available in 2021,” said Rob Haworth, senior investment strategist at US Bank Wealth Management , said. Seattle.
However, losses in the technology sector are offset by gains from Microsoft Corp, Apple Inc. and Facebook Inc., which are holding back declines on major U.S. stock indices.
Shares of energy, finance and industrial and consumer discretion, which have been one of the best-performing sectors since the US election in November, fell the most on Friday.
The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq suffered some losses after the opening bell as data show that U.S. manufacturing activity rose surprisingly to its highest level in more than 13-1 / 2-year in early January, in contrast to ‘ a disappointing result in the Purchasing Manager’s data earlier in Europe.
At 14:18 ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 121.68 points or 0.39% to 31,054.33, the S&P 500 lost 9.35 points, or 0.24%, to 3,843.72 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 14.42 points, or 0.11%, to 13,516.49.
Despite the weakness, the three main indices for weekly earnings were fixed, with the technology Nasdaq performance for its best weekly performance since November 6, while investors in Alphabet Inc, Apple Inc and Amazon.com Inc waited in anticipation of their earnings reports. in the coming weeks.
As stock valuations near the levels have been approaching since the Dotcom era, some market participants said new COVID-19 variants and hiccups in the rollout of vaccines pose short-term risks.
At a White House rally on Thursday, President Joe Biden said the death toll from the pandemic next month was likely to be as high as 500,000 next month.
“If we’re forced to shut down the economy and take longer than we want to get vaccines and vaccinations for the coronavirus, it’s going to be a little harder on the market than people apparently expected,” Haworth said. said.
The Senate Finance Committee unanimously approved the nomination of Janet Yellen as the first female Treasury Secretary, indicating that she would easily get the full approval of the Senate.
Declining issues surpassed the number on the NYSE with a 1.54-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.21-to-1 ratio was the case of declines.
The S&P 500 reached 12 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 128 new highs and 6 new lows.
Reporting by Echo Wang in New York; Additional reporting by Devik Jain and Medha Singh in Bengaluru; Edited by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty, Anil D’Silva and Diane Craft