The Nasdaq Composite fell on Wednesday as a pullback from shares of Google-parent Alphabet led the broader field of tech stocks lower.
The tech-heavy index lost nearly 1%, while the S&P 500 pulled back by 0.5%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average bucked the negative trend, rising 76 points, or 0.2%.
Tech stocks were largely under pressure following Alphabet’s third-quarter results a day earlier. Alphabet shares tumbled more than 6% as its cloud business missed analysts’ estimates, overshadowing its revenue growth and earnings beat. Shares of peer tech behemoths and Apple and Amazon meanwhile, slipped 1% and 1.5%.
Microsoft stood out as an outlier among the decline in tech stocks on Tuesday, with shares gaining nearly 5% before the opening bell after first-quarter results beat Wall Street estimates.
Boeing ticked up 3.1% after the company’s third-quarter results showed revenue for commercial airplanes exceeded expectations. The company also maintained its free cash flow outlook for the year. To be sure, the aerospace giant posted a bigger-than-expected adjusted loss for the quarter.
Tech firms IBM and Meta will post quarterly results in the afternoon. About 25% of S&P 500 companies have posted third-quarter earnings thus far. Of those companies, 78% have exceeded expectations.
“We’re getting some mixed to positive results in aggregate from the earning season. So, I think we can get back to this Goldilocks period, where we can dream that they’re going to stop raising rates, and eventually there’ll be accommodation — and in the interim — growth,” Trivariate Research founder and CEO Adam Parker said on CNBC’s “Closing Bell” on Tuesday. “I think we’ll end up the year higher based on that.”
The major averages all notched gains in the main trading session on the back of several strong corporate earnings reports. The Dow added more than 200 points, or 0.6%, to break a four-day losing streak. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite gained 0.7% and 0.9%, respectively.
During a relatively quiet week for economic data, Wall Street will look toward September’s building permits and new home sales numbers for insight into the housing market.
