Wednesday, November 6, 2024

Stock market today: Wall Street churns as profit reports come in mixed

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NEW YORK (AP) — A mixed set of profit reports from giants like Google’s parent company and Eli Lilly has stock indexes churning in place on Wall Street. The S&P 500 was down 0.1% in early trading Wednesday, still near its all-time high set earlier this month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 79 points, or 0.2%, and the Nasdaq composite added 0.2% to the record it set a day earlier. Alphabet jumped after blowing past analysts’ forecasts for profit in the latest quarter, thanks largely to the performance of its Google business. Eli Lilly tumbled amid concerns about two of its blockbuster products.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

Trading on Wall Street is essentially flat early Wednesday on mixed corporate earnings reports and new data on U.S. growth.

Futures for the S&P 500 ticked up 0.1% before the bell, while futures for the Dow Jones industrials fell 0.2%. After hitting a record high on Tuesday, futures for the tech-heavy Nasdaq ticked up another 0.2%.

The U.S. economy grew at a healthy 2.8% annual rate from July through September, with consumers helping drive growth despite the weight of still-high interest rates.

Wednesday’s report from the Commerce Department said the gross domestic product — the economy’s total output of goods and services — slowed slightly from its 3% growth rate in the April-June quarter. But the latest figures still reflect surprising durability just as Americans assess the state of the economy in the final stretch of the presidential race.

Alphabet gained 6.2% after hours on another strong earnings report from Google’s parent company. Alphabet earned $26.3 billion during the most recent quarter, a 34% increase from a year ago. The profits would have been even higher if Google wasn’t pouring so much money into building up its AI arsenal.

The semiconductor sector is under pressure and Qorvo lost nearly one-fifth of its value overnight after it lowered its forecast, saying that consumers are shifting away from high-end android phones to cheaper ones that use lower grade chips. Qorvo forecast third-quarter revenue of about $900 million, well below analysts’ estimates of $1.07 billion. The company, whose profit guidance also came in below targets, fell more than 18% before the bell Tuesday.

Another chipmaker, Advance Micro Devices, fell more than 8% after issuing a mixed earnings report and a disappointing forecast.

Chipmakers were the worst performing sector before the opening bell Wednesday, with Skyworks and Qualcomm falling hard as well.

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