Uneven Earnings Weigh on U.S. Stocks
Updated from 9:54 a.m. EDT
Wall Street was giving back ground Tuesday in the face of more uneven earnings reports and dour economic data, as well as an ongoing
Federal Reserve
meeting.
The
Dow Jones Industrial Average
was off 42 points to 12,829, and the
S&P 500
surrendered 7 points at 1389. The
Nasdaq Composite
lost 10 points to 2414.
"It's another one of these quiet days," said Robert Pavlik, chief investment officer with Oaktree Asset Management. "The market is waiting on the Fed and the
gross domestic product report, and then it'll be waiting on the employment report. The market is looking for another catalyst to drive us forward."
The Fed, which isn't due to render any decisions until Wednesday, is widely expected to shave 25 basis points off the fed funds target rate. Many observers have also predicted that the move will mark a pause in the central bank's months-long easing cycle. The overnight lending rate, which currently stands at 2.25%, has been brought down by 300 basis points since September.
Preliminary GDP numbers are due out tomorrow, as well, and the Labor Department should report its monthly employment data on Friday.
"It's all about the Fed statement tomorrow," said Chip Hanlon, president of Delta Global Advisors and contributor to
TheStreet Recommends
RealMoney.com
, a sister site to
TheStreet.com
. "If the Fed comes out of it and says it thinks it's done enough, and at least indicates it's going to pause its easing campaign, that continues to help the dollar and take the edge off these commodities in the short term."
He noted that futures were today pricing in a 16% chance that the Fed won't cut rates at all, which he commented would be a long-term positive indicator, even if stocks react negatively in the short run. The probability of a quarter-point easing stood at 84%, leaving no room for a steeper cut.
As for earnings, after the prior close the newly public
Visa
said first-quarter income jumped 27.6% on a spike in revenue, which on an adjusted basis topped the average Wall Street estimate. Despite this, as well as positive initial ratings from SunTrust and Wachovia, investors took down shares by 1.5%.
Rival
MasterCard
(MA) - Get Mastercard Incorporated Report
, on the other hand, jumped 9.7% after demolishing analyst targets with an adjusted first-quarter profit of $3.01 a share.
Meanwhile, Dow component
Merck
(MRK) - Get Merck & Company Inc. Report
slid 10.4% after the Food and Drug Administration rejected its new cholesterol drug, MK-0524A, which was proposed to raise levels of "good" cholesterol in the body.
On the economic docket, the Conference Board reported that its April consumer-confidence index sank to 62.3, a bit better than expected, from the prior month's revised reading of 65.9.
Also, the February S&P/Case-Shiller survey revealed that its 10-city composite -- a compiling of housing data from 10 major U.S. cities -- showed a "record" year-over-year slide of 13.6% in prices of existing single-family homes. The 20-city composite sank 12.7% as 17 of those cities registered all-time lows in their declines from last year.
RealtyTrac added more sour data to the pile, saying that first-quarter foreclosures rocketed 112% from last year to 649,917, or one in every 194 U.S. households. The number also represents a 23% jump from the prior quarter.
Back on the corporate front,
Countrywide
(CFC)
saw choppy trading after losing $893 million, or $1.60 a share, in the first quarter, as its credit-loss provision rose to $1.52 billion and charge-offs more than doubled from the prior quarter.
Bank of America
(BAC) - Get Bank of America Corporation Report
agreed to take out the company in January. Countrywide shares were recently up 1.2%.
Germany's
Deutsche Bank
(DB) - Get Deutsche Bank AG Report
reported that $4.2 billion in first-quarter writedowns have led to its first quarterly loss in five years, and shares were off 1.2%. Also, German insurance giant
Allianz
(AZ)
sank 1.9% after saying it will probably be forced to write off $1.4 billion in bad assets, which will contribute to pulling its profit down 66% from a year earlier and make its medium-term goals "harder" to achieve.
Oil companies were flush with positive news, however, as the recent crude-futures climb fattened first-quarter results.
Royal Dutch Shell
(RDS.A)
said its first-quarter profit ballooned 25% to $9.08 billion, and
BP
reported a 63% surge in earnings to $7.6 billion. Shares were up 4.5% and 4%, respectively.
At the same time crude oil was backing off, recently retreating by $1.67 at $117.08 a barrel, as gold futures slid $14 to $881.50. The U.S. dollar firmed by 0.2% against the euro at $1.5606, but lost 0.9% against the yen at 103.35.
Treasury prices were rising. The 10-year note was up 13/32 in price to yield 3.78%, and the 30-year bond climbed 23/32 in price, yielding 4.52%.
Overseas markets were mixed. In Asia, Tokyo's Nikkei 225 rose 0.2% overnight to 13,894, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index climbed 1%. Among European exchanges, the FTSE 100 in London lost 0.4% as Germany's Xetra Dax and the Paris Cac gave up 0.8% apiece.
