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Alphabet shares drop on report Samsung may dump Google
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State Street slides on first-quarter profit miss
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New York factory activity rebounds in April - NY Fed
(Updates with close of U.S. trading)
By Lewis Krauskopf, Sruthi Shankar and Ankika Biswas
April 17 (Reuters) - Major U.S. stock indexes ended with
slim gains on Monday, helped by financial and industrial shares
while investors braced for a heavy week of corporate results and
comments from Federal Reserve officials that could give more
insight into the path of interest rates.
Markets are gauging the health of corporate profits and the
economy after several banks kicked off first-quarter reports
with strong results last week.
Meanwhile, the New York Fed said on Monday its barometer of
manufacturing activity in New York State increased for the first
time in five months in April, helping solidify the case for the
U.S. central bank to raise rates at its meeting next month.
"Markets are in a bit of a wait-and-see mode," said Angelo
Kourkafas, an investment strategist at Edward Jones. "We have a
lot of corporate earnings ahead of us and the Fed rate decision
in a couple of weeks."
According to preliminary data, the S&P 500 gained 13.76 points, or 0.33%, to end at 4,151.40 points,
while the Nasdaq Composite gained 32.99 points, or
0.27%, to 12,156.45. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 100.89 points, or 0.30%, to 33,987.36.
Shares of Google parent Alphabet Inc dropped after
a report that South Korea's Samsung Electronics was
considering replacing Google with Microsoft-owned Bing
as the default search engine on its devices.
Investors are awaiting more reports from major U.S. banks
this week, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc , Bank of
America Corp and Morgan Stanley , after
heavyweights including JP Morgan Chase & Co reaped
windfalls from higher interest payments last week.
Other companies due to report this week include Johnson &
Johnson , Tesla Inc and Netflix Inc .
S&P 500 company earnings are expected to have declined 4.8%
in the first quarter from the year-earlier period, according to
Refinitiv IBES data.
"Corporate profits are emerging as the big driver of what
the market is likely to do in the near term and investors want
to see what those look like here before they place bets," said
Chuck Carlson, chief executive officer at Horizon Investment
Services in Hammond, Indiana.
Investors are also seeking to gauge the outlooks from
executives following a banking crisis last month that some
expect could hasten an economic downturn.
U.S. Treasury yields rose on Monday, with a slew of Fed
speakers due later in the week. The U.S. central bank is widely
seen raising rates by 25 basis points to the 5%-5.25% range next
month.
In company news, State Street Corp shares fell after
the financial services provider's quarterly profit missed
analysts' estimates, hurt by a fall in fee income.
(Reporting by Lewis Krauskopf in New York, Sruthi Shankar and
Ankika Biswas in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta and
Richard Chang)
