Wall Street fell on Wednesday after disappointing quarterly results from bellwether Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT) and Boeing (NYSE:BA), provoked fresh doubts about the sustainability of corporate earnings.
Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT) fell 6% after its second-quarter results came in lower than expected, as the manufacturing bellwether reported lower demand in China that hit sales in its Asia-Pacific region.
"Caterpillar's results show that there is weakness in the Asia Pacific region, and if there is a slowdown there, where is the next pocket of slowdown, and people could start extrapolating from that," Andre Bakhos, managing director at New Vines Capital LLC in Bernardsville, New Jersey.
The Dow slumped 121 points or 0.4% by 9:48 AM ET (13:48 GMT), while the S&P 500 was down 1 point or 0.1% and the Nasdaq composite gained 5 points or 0.1%.
Meanwhile, Boeing (NYSE:BA) declined 1.5% after reporting a record quarterly loss and failing to give guidance on when its grounded 737 MAX model would fly again. It also warned that there was "significant risk" to the delivery schedule of its new wide-bodied model, the 777X.
Technology stocks were rocky, after the U.S. Justice Department announced an antirust investigation into online social sites. While it did not name any companies, the wording of the review point to Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Facebook (NASDAQ:FB). Shares of all three were down almost 1%.
Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) reports earnings after the bell and was also under pressure from announced settlements with regulators for its privacy policies, which include $5 billion in fines.
In commodities, crude oil rose 0.6% to $57.12 a barrel while Gold futures gained 0.5% to $1,428.65 a troy ounce. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, was down 0.1% to 97.317.
-Reuters contributed to this report.
