US open: Mixed start to trading as investors await Alphabet earnings

dl wall street new york city wall st nyc new york stock exchange nyse nasdaq us usa united states of america trading finance unsplash — Sharecast / Roberto Junior via Unsplash

Wall Street trading got off to a mixed start on Tuesday as market participants braced for a number of big tech earnings.

As of 1530 GMT, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.16% at 42,321.48, while the S&P 500 advanced 0.09% to 5,829.04 and the Nasdaq Composite came out the gate 0.39% firmer at 18,639.75.

The Dow opened 66.09 points lower on Tuesday, taking a modest bite out of gains recorded in the previous session.

Tuesday's primary focus will likely be earnings from the likes of Alphabet, Snap, Reddit and Advanced Micro Devices - all of which were scheduled to post quarterly numbers after the close.

Elsewhere in the corporate space, automotive giant Ford traded lower after issuing light FY guidance, while shares in fast food behemoth McDonald's also headed south on the back of a bigger-than-expected drop in same-store sales.

On the macro front, preliminary numbers from the Commerce Department revealed that the US trade deficit had widened 14.9% to a two-and-a-half-year high of $108.2bn in September.

Elsewhere, wholesale inventories fell by 1% month-on-month in September, according to the Census Bureau, down to $905.0bn, following a revised 0.2% increase in August. Durable goods inventories declined by 0.2%, while non-durable goods stocks rebounded by 0.2%.

On another note, the Conference Board's consumer confidence index increased to 108.7 in October, up from 99.2 in September, with the present situation index increasing by 14.2 points to 138.0 and the expectations index rising 6.3 points to 891.

Still on data, September's JOLTS job report revealed the number of job openings in the US had fallen by 418,000 to 7.44m last month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, down from a revised print of 7.86m in August and short of analysts' expectations of 7.99m.

Finally, S&P/Case-Shiller's said US home prices increased by 4.2% in August.

Oil prices were also drawing an amount of investor attention at the open, with West Texas Intermediate down 0.30% at $67.18 per barrel, as were elevated Treasury yields, with the yield on the benchmark 10-year note sitting at 4.329%, up more than four basis points at its highest level in roughly three months.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com

Dow Jones - Risers

Boeing Co. (BA) $154.24 2.36%
Salesforce.Com Inc. (CRM) $297.33 1.34%
Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) $55.81 0.95%
Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. (WBA) $9.51 0.69%
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) $429.49 0.68%
Merck & Co. Inc. (MRK) $104.54 0.30%
McDonald's Corp. (MCD) $297.55 0.26%
Nike Inc. (NKE) $79.09 0.23%
Walt Disney Co. (DIS) $96.40 0.21%
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) $524.54 0.18%