US STOCKS-Wall St stumbles as stimulus talks loom; 3M, McDonald's disappoint

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* Pfizer up after raising full-year forecast
* McDonald's falls as global same-store sales disappoint
* 3M drops as quarterly profit misses estimates
* Indexes down: Dow 0.47%, S&P 0.14%, Nasdaq 0.36%

(Updates to early afternoon)
By Devik Jain and Medha Singh
July 28 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell on Tuesday as investors
awaited progress on Washington's coronavirus aid plan, with the
blue-chip Dow index weighed down by 3M and McDonald's shares
after the companies posted quarterly profits that missed
estimates.
Industrial conglomerate 3M Co MMM.N dropped 4.3% as it
reported a plunge in demand across its business units in the
second quarter. McDonald's Corp MCD.N fell 2.5% after posting a
bigger-than-expected drop in global same-store sales.
"This earnings season is a classic example of management
sandbagging their second-quarter expectations and the analysts
community playing along," said Mike Zigmont, head of trading and
research at Harvest Volatility Management in New York.
"It's mostly about beating expectations and if companies
don't beat that's the story because it's so rare."
Of the 130 S&P 500 companies that have reported, about 80%
of them surpassed significantly lowered forecasts for quarterly
profit, according to Refinitiv IBES data, better than the
average of 71% companies beating profit estimates over the past
four quarters.
A rally in U.S. stocks slowed recently as investors worried
about signs of a stalling economic recovery amid a resurgence in
coronavirus cases, while awaiting progress on government
stimulus talks.
Senate Republicans announced on Monday a $1 trillion aid
package hammered out with the White House — four days before
millions of Americans lose unemployment benefits — but the
proposal sparked immediate opposition from both Democrats and
some Republicans. Latest data showed U.S. consumer confidence ebbed in July
amid a flare-up in coronavirus infections across the country.
The U.S. Federal Reserve also said it would extend several
of its lending facilities through the end of the year, in a sign
the economic impact of the pandemic has been more prolonged than
expected. "The coronavirus has sort of popped back into the
consciousness of America and that will dampen enthusiasm a
little bit. A small disappointment makes sense because you can't
have exuberant confidence forever," Zigmont said.
At 12:44 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI
was down 124.30 points, or 0.47%, at 26,460.47 and the S&P 500
.SPX was down 4.65 points, or 0.14%, at 3,234.76. The Nasdaq
Composite .IXIC was down 38.04 points, or 0.36%, at 10,498.22.
A major focus this week will be results from Wall Street's
trillion-dollar market value companies - Apple Inc AAPL.O ,
Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O and Alphabet Inc GOOGL.O - as well as
Facebook Inc FB.O .
Industrials .SPLRCI and consumer discretionary .SPLRCD
stocks weighed the most on the benchmark S&P 500 index.
The U.S. central bank is expected to reiterate its
accommodative stance when it wraps up its two-day policy meeting
on Wednesday afternoon.
Pfizer Inc PFE.N rose 4% after it raised its full-year
forecast on strong demand for cancer drugs and blood thinners.
Late on Monday, the drugmaker announced a pivotal global study
to evaluate a COVID-19 vaccine candidate. Declining issues outnumbered advancers for a 1.07-to-1 ratio
on the NYSE and for a 1.45-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded 23 new 52-week highs and no new low,
while the Nasdaq recorded 47 new highs and 17 new lows.