US close: Wall Street slips on rising bond yields

Wall Street fell back amid a torrent of quarterly earnings and another leg higher for market interest rates.

By closing bell the Dow Jones Industrial Average had slipped 0.16% to 18,169.68 points, the S&P 500 gave back 0.30% to 2,133.04 points and the Nasdaq was off 0.65% to 5,215.97 points.

"The market reaction to Q3 results has been rather muted so far and asymmetric to the downside. The median outperformance of the US stocks that beat estimates is 0.6% on the results day, while those that miss estimates underperform by 2.3%," JP Morgan strategist Emmanuel Cau said in a research report sent to clients overnight.

Benchmark 10-year US Treasury note yields rose six basis points to 1.85% despite mixed economic data, with the odds of a 25 basis point rate hike implied by Fed funds futures creeping higher to 78.5% according to the CME´s Fed Watch tool.

Google parent Alphabet and Amazon.com were to publish results after the close.

By sectors, interest rate sensitive REITs fared worst, while the KBW Bank Index added 0.47% to 75.10.

So-called 'core' orders for capital goods dropped by 1.2% over the month in September (consensus: 0.0%).

Reacting to the figures, Rob Martin and Blerina Uruci from Barclays Research said: "We view the weakness in orders and shipments as downside risk to our forecast for the industrial sector."

Nevertheless, in a later note Uruci told clients: "September durable goods orders released today did little to change the strong signal from the advance trade report, and as a result, we decided to take its implications onboard for our Q3 GDP forecast."

She lifted her tracking estimate for third quarter GDP from 2.5% to 3.0%.

In other data released on Thursday, figures from the Labor Department showed that initial jobless claims declined by 3,000 to 258,000 from an upwardly-revised 261,000, economists had expected a drop to 255,000.

This was the 86th consecutive week of initial claims below 300,000 – the longest streak since 1970.

Shares were up 0.88% in Tesla Motors as the carmaker reported that it made a surprise profit and better than expected revenue, whereas shares in Ford Motor Company were down 1.6% after it said its third quarter profit fell 56% due to recall costs, but its 26 cents per share operating profit exceeded expectations.

Twitter edged up 0.64% as it beat profit and sales expectations but said it was to cut 9% of its workforce amid uncertainty over a potential takeover.

Oil and gas explorer ConocoPhillips’ shares rose 5.26% as it reported that its 66 cents per share quarterly adjusted loss was narrower than expected of 68 cents.

Dow Jones - Risers

Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) $48.54 1.91%
E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (DD) $69.88 1.69%
International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) $153.35 1.01%
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) $115.70 1.00%
Merck & Co. Inc. (MRK) $61.29 0.69%
Walt Disney Co. (DIS) $94.02 0.57%
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) $177.88 0.38%
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) $69.83 0.34%
Pfizer Inc. (PFE) $32.48 0.25%
Visa Inc. (V) $81.92 0.21%