NEW YORK CITY: US stocks Wednesday closed mostly lower, with weak earnings and a gloomy outlook from Caterpillar weighing down the Dow. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 25.50 (0.16 percent) at 15,542.24, pulling back from a record close on Tuesday.
The broad-based S&P 500 slipped 6.45 (0.38 percent) to 1,685.94, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index was flat, inching up a bare 0.33 (0.01 percent) to 3,579.60.
Michael James, managing director of equity trading at Wedbush Morgan Securities, said the performance reflected the market is “overextended” after a series of recent record highs.
Dow component Caterpillar fell 2.4 percent after reporting a 43.5 percent drop in earnings and slashing its full-year forecasts due to weak demand in its operating segments, especially mining.
Chip and software provider Broadcom plummeted 15.1 percent after Citigroup downgraded the stock to “neutral” on concerns it could suffer from a slowing and saturated high-end smartphone market.
Apple surged 5.1 percent after profits came in at $7.47 per share, 16 cents above expectations. The results were buoyed by strong sales of iPhones even if net profits declined 22 percent from the year-ago level. Automaker Ford rose 2.5 percent after profits jumped 18.6 percent to $1.2 billion following strong sales in the US and China. Ford rival General Motors, which reports earnings Thursday, rose 1.5 percent.
European stock markets closed higher on Wednesday, with London’s FTSE 100 index of leading shares adding 0.35 percent to end at 6,620.43 points.
Frankfurt’s DAX 30 increased 0.78 percent to finish at 8,379.11 points, while the CAC 40 in Paris jumped 1.01 percent to 3,962.75 points.
In Doha, Commercial Bank of Qatar shed 3.4 percent after an earnings miss. The Gulf state’s second largest lender by market value said its second-quarter profit dropped 5.6 percent to 518 million riyals ($142.3 million), which trailed average estimates of 530.6 million riyals.
Doha’s index slipped 0.2 percent, easing off a 58-month high.
In Saudi Arabia, the index slipped 0.3 percent, extending declines from Monday’s 15-month high. Investors booked gains in the two major sectors; petrochemical and banking sector indexes dipped 0.3 and 0.5 percent respectively.
Abu Dhabi’s benchmark snapped a 13-session rally, retreating 0.6 percent, but is still up 47.9 percent in 2013. Aldar Properties shed 0.8 percent, accounting for nearly half of the market’s trading volume.
National Bank of Abu Dhabi, the largest lender by market value in the UAE, slipped 2.6 percent; it reported a 15.8 percent rise in quarterly net profit to Dh1.21bn ($329.4m), but that was slightly below analysts’ estimates of Dh1.29bn on average. Some other large-cap banks posted estimate-beating results but still declined. “Abu Dhabi bank results were solid overall and justify the current valuations,” Khan said.
Cairo’s benchmark index lost 1.7 percent to 5,360 points, retreating from a two-month high. It rose more than 20 percent from a late June low as it became clear Mursi would be ousted, raising hopes for better economic management, but it faces major chart resistance at 5,470 points, which it repeatedly tested and failed to break in May.
Agencies
