(For a Reuters live blog on U.S., UK and European stock
markets, click LIVE/ or type LIVE/ in a news window)
* IBM hits two-month low on quarterly revenue miss
* Intel slips on avoiding outsourcing embrace
* Yellen wins unanimous Senate panel vote for Treasury
* Dow down 0.39%, S&P 500 down 0.24%, Nasdaq down 0.11%
(Adds comment; updates market prices; adds New York dateline;
changes byline)
By Echo Wang
NEW YORK, Jan 22 (Reuters) - Wall Street's main indexes
slipped on Friday, dragged down by losses in blue-chip
technology stalwarts Intel and IBM following their quarterly
results, as hopes dim for a full economic reopening in the
coming months.
IBM Corp IBM.N slumped 9.83% and was the top drag on the
Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI after it missed estimates
for quarterly revenue, hurt by a rare sales decline in its
software unit. Intel Corp INTC.O shed 8.93% as new Chief Executive
Officer Pat Gelsinger's post-earnings comments suggested the
lack of a strong embrace of outsourcing. "The challenge for the (tech) industry at this point in
earnings season, is how much of their earnings growth
expectations were pulled into 2020 and may not be available in
2021," said Rob Haworth, senior investment strategist at U.S.
Bank Wealth Management in Seattle.
However, losses in the tech sector were offset by gains from
Microsoft Corp MSFT.O , Apple Inc AAPL.O and Facebook Inc
FB.O , keeping the declines on the main U.S. stock indexes in
check.
Shares of energy .SPNY , financial .SPSY , and industrial
.SPLRCI and consumer discretion .SPLRCD , which have been
among the best performing sectors since the U.S. elections in
November, fell the most on Friday.
The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq pared some losses after the
opening bell as data showed U.S. manufacturing activity
surprisingly surged to its highest level in more than
13-1/2-years in early January, in contrast to a
disappointing result in the purchasing manager data in Europe
earlier.
By 2:18PM ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI fell
121.68 points, or 0.39%, to 31,054.33, the S&P 500 .SPX lost
9.35 points, or 0.24%, to 3,843.72 and the Nasdaq Composite
.IXIC dropped 14.42 points, or 0.11%, to 13,516.49.
Despite the weakness, the three major indexes were set for
weekly gains, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq tracking for its best
weekly performance since Nov. 6 as investors piled into Alphabet
Inc GOOGL.O , Apple Inc AAPL.O and Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O in
anticipation of their earnings reports in the coming weeks.
With stock valuations nearing levels not seen since the
Dotcom era, some market participants said new COVID-19 variants
and hiccups in vaccine rollouts pose near-term risks.
In a White House event on Thursday, President Joe Biden said
the U.S. death toll from the pandemic will probably top 500,000
next month. "If we're forced to keep the economy closed and it takes
longer than we want to get through immunizations and
vaccinations for the coronavirus, that's going to be a little
rougher on the market than people apparently anticipated," said
Haworth.
The Senate Finance Committee unanimously approved Janet
Yellen's nomination as the first woman Treasury secretary,
indicating that she will easily win full Senate approval.
Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a
1.54-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.21-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
The S&P 500 posted 12 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the
Nasdaq Composite recorded 128 new highs and 6 new lows.
<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Tech market caps https://tmsnrt.rs/2Y5HURS
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>