US close: Stocks flat as earnings take centre stage

dl nyse new york stock exchange wall st street city finance dow jones nasdaq sp finance dollar dollars us usa united states of america 2 — New York Stock ExchangeSharecast photo / Josh White

Wall Street stocks were little changed at the end of trading on Tuesday following a handful of quarterly earnings reports.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.03% at 33,976.63, while the S&P 500 advanced 0.09% to 4,154.87 and the Nasdaq Composite saw out the session 0.04% softer at 12,153.41.

The Dow closed 10.55 points lower on Wednesday, doing little to impact gains recorded in the previous session.

Earnings were in focus on Tuesday, with banking giant Bank of America beating on both the top and bottom lines with its Q1 earnings amid rising interest rates, while Johnson & Johnson topped expectations with its results, leading the drug and consumer products manufacturer to hike its full-year guidance.

Goldman Sachs delivered weaker-than-expected Q1 revenues, as well as a $470.0m impact from its Marcus loans, while streaming behemoth Netflix posted mixed results after the close, with both subscriber growth and a weaker-than-expected outlook.

On the macro front, US homebuilding activity slowed last month, although the underlying details of the latest data set from the Department of Commerce was better. In seasonally adjusted terms, housing starts dropped at a month-on-month pace of 0.8% in March to reach an annual rate of 1.42m - ahead of consensus estimates for a print of 1.40m. Starts for the month before, on the other hand, were revised down from 1.45m to 1.43m.

Elsewhere, a top US central bank official said that the Fed funds rate should rise to 5.5-5.75%. Speaking to Reuters, St Louis Federal Reserve head James Bullard stated recession talk was based on models that put too much weight on the idea that interest rates went up quickly. Bullard also highlighted how the St Louis Fed's financial stress index had spiked after the 10 March collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, but later quickly fell back to a normal reading, and cautioned against tying the central bank's hands behind its back once that level of rates was reached.

Federal Reserve governor Michelle Bowman expressed concern over the possible introduction of a digital US dollar, noting that multiple risks posed by such a system. Bowman said a central bank digital currency could intrude on the privacy of users and harm the banking system while providing only limited benefits.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com

Dow Jones - Risers

Boeing Co. (BA) $208.37 1.63%
Home Depot Inc. (HD) $298.98 1.20%
JP Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM) $141.40 1.12%
Apple Inc. (AAPL) $166.47 0.75%
Salesforce.Com Inc. (CRM) $198.50 0.72%
Walt Disney Co. (DIS) $100.93 0.63%
McDonald's Corp. (MCD) $290.91 0.55%
American Express Co. (AXP) $164.40 0.42%
Travelers Company Inc. (TRV) $172.00 0.42%
Walmart Inc. (WMT) $149.85 0.22%