Fourth-quarter earnings season took center stage, with
Caterpillar Inc down 2.6%, as the heavy equipment maker missed
quarterly earnings on higher manufacturing costs. .
McDonald's Corp beat Wall Street estimates for quarterly
comparable sales, but the fast-food chain's shares fell 1.0% as
it warned of short-term inflationary pressures.
Pfizer Inc slid 3.2% after the drugmaker's full-year revenue
outlook for its COVID-19 products fell short of expectations.
Wall Street started the year on a strong footing and is set to
end January higher, with the Nasdaq up nearly 9% as growth
stocks attracted investor attention earlier in the month.
The resilience in momentum stocks will be put to the test on
Wednesday after the Federal Reserve unveils its plan to deal
with inflation this year.
Higher rates tend to particularly pressure the valuations of
tech and other high growth stocks.
Traders are betting on a 25-basis-points hike (bps) at the end
of the U.S. central bank's two-day meeting, and a terminal rate
of 4.9% in June.
U.S. chipmakers, including Micron Technology Inc and Western
Digital Corp fell 4.4% and 2.5%, respectively.
Samsung Electronics Co Ltd stoked fears of pulling away market
share from rivals after it indicated it had no plans to cut
investments in chips, even as rivals lower spending amid a tough
macro environment.
As many as 140 S&P 500 companies had reported earnings for the
fourth-quarter by Monday. Earnings are expected to have fallen
3% this quarter compared with the prior-year, according to
Refinitiv data.
At 7:20 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 111 points, or 0.33%, S&P
500 e-minis were down 11 points, or 0.27%, and Nasdaq 100
e-minis were down 50.25 points, or 0.42%.
(Reporting by Johann M Cherian and Shreyashi Sanyal in Bengaluru;
Editing by Vinay Dwivedi)
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