Wall Street was flat on Wednesday as concerns that lower interest rates will hit corporate bank earnings kept investors in check.
The Dow fell 19 points or 0.1% by 9:42 AM ET (13:42 GMT), while the S&P 500 was down half a point or 0.1% and the Nasdaq composite rose 4 points or 0.1%.
Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) was the latest to warn that falling interest rates will hit bank profits. Earnings from JP Morgan, Citigroup (NYSE:C) and Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) this week showed that upbeat retail banking results were offset by weak performance in investment banking, while lending margins suffered from a drop in long-term interest rates.
Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) executives warned that growth in net interest income could slow to 1% this year if the Federal Reserve cuts rates twice. JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) said Tuesday that it assumes three rate cuts by the end of the year. BofA's stock was up 1% after it posted an 8% rise in net profit for the quarter.
Expectations that the Fed will cut interest rates this year have helped push U.S. stock markets toward record highs.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) fell 0.1%, while Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) slipped 0.5% and Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) dipped 0.3% on news that the European Commission opened an antitrust investigation into how it deals with independent retailers.
Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) gained 3.7% on news that the U.S. Department of Justice asked an appeals court to pause an antitrust ruling, citing national security concerns. Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) rose 1.7%, while Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD)was up 0.4% and Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) inched up 0.5%.
In commodities, crude oil rose 0.8% to $58.08 a barrel. Gold futures inched up 0.1% to $1,412.75 a troy ounce, while the U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, fell 0.1% to 96.972.
