NEW YORK: The S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed weaker on Tuesday (Aug 1), the first day of seasonally slow August, ahead of US jobs data and major companies' earnings reports later this week.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 71.15 points, or 0.2%, to 35,630.68. The S&P 500 lost 12.23 points, or 0.27%, at 4,576.73 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 62.11 points, or 0.43%, to 14,283.91.
“I don’t want to read too much into it because the declines are relatively small,” said Steve Sosnick of Interactive Brokers, referring to overall market movements.
He added that many traders are incentivised to wait until later in the week, when earnings from Apple and Amazon are due, along with employment data.
The market, he said, is in a “wait-and-see mode”.
US stocks ended July on a strong footing, as investors welcomed better-than-expected earnings. Support also came from hopes of a soft landing for the economy which has stayed resilient as inflation has cooled with rising interest rates.
The benchmark S&P 500 hit a 16-month high on Monday, and is less than 5% away from breaching its record high closing level notched on Jan. 3, 2022.
“It’s been a really good run in June, July. And everybody sort of knows that August was historically a pretty weak seasonal month,” said Scott Ladner, chief investment officer of Horizon Investments. “So I think people are just taking the opportunity to lighten up a little bit.”
Keeping a lid on the Dow's losses, Caterpillar added 8.9% as the global economic bellwether reported a rise in second-quarter profit, though it warned of a sequential fall in current-quarter sales and margins.
Uber shed 5.7% after the ride-hailing company missed second-quarter revenue expectations.
Among pharmaceutical heavyweights, Pfizer edged lower in choppy trading after the drugmaker’s quarterly revenue fell short of Wall Street expectations, hit by declining sales of its Covid-19 products.
US second-quarter earnings are now expected to fall 5.9% from a year earlier, Refinitiv data on Tuesday showed, compared with a 7.9% decline estimated a week earlier.
Shares of megacap growth companies such as Tesla and Amazon.com, whose valuations drop when borrowing costs rise, fell as the benchmark 10-year US Treasury note yield climbed over 4%. – Reuters, AFP
