Midday Report: Existing Home Sales at Best Since 2007; U.S. Stocks Mixed

Quarterly reports continued to come in at breakneck speed with some of the key highlights including American Express, eBay, General Motors, Southwest Airlines, and Biogen.

Author:: Keris Alison Lahiff
Publish date:: Jul 21, 2016 12:14 PM EDT

U.S. stocks fluctuated as earnings season took focus on Thursday. Quarterly reports continued to come in at breakneck speed with some of the key highlights including American Express (AXP) - Get Report , eBay (EBAY) - Get Report , General Motors (GM) - Get Report , Southwest Airlines (LUV) - Get Report , and Biogen (BIIB) - Get Report . Intel (INTC) - Get Report was among them. The tech company fell after weak quarterly growth in its server CPU segment, a unit seen as the long-term solution to counteract weak PC sales. However, overall earnings did manage to top estimates. Existing home sales rose 1.1 percent to their strongest level since February 2007. Sales of previously-owned homes have remained robust with strong demand pushing the entire sector to multi-year highs. Anthem (ANTM) - Get Report and Cigna (CI) - Get Report were active after the U.S. Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit to block the proposed $54 billion deal. Nine states and the District of Columbia have joined the action.