April 12, 2024 – 7:30 AM PDT
(Reuters) – Wall Street’s main stock indexes fell on Friday as some big banks dipped after reporting dour quarterly results and most megacap growth stocks and chipmakers receded.
JPMorgan Chase & Co(JPM.N) was down 4.8% after the bank’s forecast for its income from interest payments came in below analysts’ expectations.
Wells Fargo(WFC.N) edged lower 0.1% after reporting a more than 7% fall in first-quarter profit, as it earned less from customer interest payments. Citigroup(C.N) lost 0.5% as its first-quarter profit fell.
“Most indicators are that the growth has been fairly persistent in the last couple of quarters,” said Hugh Anderson, managing director at HighTower Advisors.
“I would expect that the banks are going to show some decent earnings, but they also might show some cracks in the other parts of the reports, such as delinquencies, defaults and the like, because there is some evidence of that in the market.”
The S&P 500 banks index (.SPXBK) fell 2.4% to hit its lowest level in nearly a month.
Falling megacap growth stocks weighed on indexes, with Nvidia (NVDA.O), Tesla (TSLA.O) and Meta Platforms (META.O) down between 1.1% and 1.4%.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.O) and Intel (INTC.O), opens new tab lost over 3.5% each after a report that Chinese officials had told the country’s largest telecom firm earlier this year to phase out foreign chips that are key to their networks by 2027.
Information technology (.SPLRCT) stocks were among the top sectoral losers, down 0.9%.
The Dow (.DJI) and the S&P 500 (.SPX) eyed weekly losses as sentiment was roiled this week following a hotter-than-anticipated inflation reading that pushed traders to scale back enthusiasm around the U.S. central bank cutting interest rates. The tech-heavy Nasdaq (.IXIC), however, was on track for its first weekly gain in three.
The Nasdaq and the S&P 500 closed higher in the previous session as fresh economic data rekindled hopes that inflation remained in a cooling trend.
Money market participants see an about 56% chance of the Fed bringing in the first interest-rate cut in July, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.
Meanwhile, Boston Fed President Susan Collins is eyeing a couple of interest-rate cuts this year, amid expectations that it could take some time for inflation to return to its targeted level.
Focus now turns to comments from Kansas City Fed President Jeffrey Schmid and his Atlanta counterpart Raphael Bostic later in the day, for hints on the central bank’s rate outlook.
A preliminary reading of the University of Michigan’s overall Consumer Sentiment Index for April came in at 77.9. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast a preliminary reading of 79.0.
At 10:04 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) was down 241.86 points, or 0.63%, at 38,217.22, the S&P 500 (.SPX) was down 36.13 points, or 0.69%, at 5,162.93, and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) was down 136.66 points, or 0.83%, at 16,305.54.
Energy stocks (.SPNY) bucked the trend to gain 1.0%, tracking higher crude prices on heightened tensions in the Middle East.
Declining issues outnumbered advancers for a 2.08-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and for a 2.51-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded 12 new 52-week highs and five new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 28 new highs and 77 new lows.
Reporting by Shashwat Chauhan and Shristi Achar A in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta and Pooja Desai