The Dow fell sharply on Tuesday as weak earnings from Goldman Sachs dragged the index lower, but a jump in Tesla shares buoyed the Nasdaq as the corporate earnings season took centre stage.
Goldman Sachs slumped after the bank reported a bigger-than-expected drop in quarterly profit and was the biggest drag on the price-weighted index. A stock’s share value is proportional to its contribution to the index, in contrast to the market capitalisation-weighted SAlso weighing on the blue-chip Dow index was insurer Travelers, which fell after forecasting fourth-quarter earnings below estimates.
Morgan Stanley rose after it beat analysts’ estimates for fourth-quarter profit as its trading business got a boost from market volatility.P 500 companies to decline 2.4 per cent for the quarter, according to Refinitiv data, compared with a 1.6 per cent decline at the start of the year. Equity markets have posted a strong start to the year after a dismal 2022, on hopes easing inflation and a slowdown most notably in the labor market would allow the Federal Reserve to pare the size of interest rate hikes it is using to combat high prices.