Wall Street’s main indexes dipped on Monday although the S&P 500 and the Dow were still near record levels, as investors anticipated first-quarter earnings season for any hints that corporate America was rebounding from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Coca-Cola Co trounced estimates for quarterly profit and revenue, benefiting from the easing of pandemic curbs and wide vaccine rollouts. Its shares slipped about 0.1% in early trading.
IBM Corp, another blue-chip company, slipped about 0.2% ahead of its results due after the closing bell.
“The market is waiting to see if blowout earnings in banks will continue to other sectors,” said Thomas Hayes, chairman of Great Hill Capital.
“One of the things the market is looking for is increased participation among tech stocks, which have lagged in 2021.”
A recent pullback in the benchmark 10-year bond yield from 14-month highs has renewed interest in richly valued technology stocks, while a string of strong economic data has also helped push the S&P 500 and the Dow to record levels.
The S&P 500 has risen for the past four weeks, its longest winning streak since August 2020.
About 79 S&P 500 companies are due to report earnings this week including Johnson & Johnson, Netflix Inc, Intel Corp, Honeywell and Schlumberger, according to Refinitiv IBES data.
Nine of the 11 major S&P sectors dropped with financials and energy the only exceptions.
At 09:57 a.m. EDT the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 92.61 points, or 0.27%, to 34,108.06, the S&P 500 lost 5.60 points, or 0.13%, to 4,179.87 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 28.53 points, or 0.20%, to 14,023.81.
Tesla Inc dropped 4.2% after two men died as its electric car, which was believed to be operating without anyone in the driver’s seat, crashed into a tree in Texas. The stock was also under pressure due to a sharp fall in bitcoin over the weekend.
GameStop Corp jumped 8.5% on the announcement of its CEO’s resignation.
Crypto stocks including miners Riot Blockchain and Marathon Digital dropped about 6.6 and 4.5%, respectively, as bitcoin took a hammering.
Harley-Davidson jumped 8% after the motorcycle maker raised it full-year forecast for sales growth.
Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 1.4-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and by a 1.6-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P 500 posted 47 new 52-week highs and no new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 107 new highs and 35 new lows.
