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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
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Indexes down: Dow 0.21%, S&P 0.3%, Nasdaq 0.38%
(Updates with mid-afternoon trading)
By Lewis Krauskopf, Sruthi Shankar and Ankika Biswas
April 17 (Reuters) - Major U.S. stock indexes edged
lower on Monday as higher bond yields weighed on tech and growth
stocks and 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."
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 69.82 points,
or 0.21%, to 33,816.65; the S&P 500 lost 12.41 points, or
0.30%, at 4,125.23; and the Nasdaq Composite dropped
46.39 points, or 0.38%, to 12,077.08.
Shares of Google parent Alphabet Inc fell 3% 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. Alphabet shares
were the biggest drag on the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite.
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.
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 10.6%
after the financial services provider's quarterly profit missed
analysts' estimates, hurt by a fall in fee income.
Declining issues outnumbered advancers on the NYSE by a
1.11-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.15-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
The S&P 500 posted 14 new 52-week highs and one new low; the
Nasdaq Composite recorded 62 new highs and 142 new lows.
(Reporting by Lewis Krauskopf in New York, Sruthi Shankar and
Ankika Biswas in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta and
Richard Chang)
