Investing.com – Wall Street showed mixed trade on Wednesday as investors weighed earnings as the first quarter reporting season continued to rev its engines.
At 11:00AM ET (15:00GMT), the Dow Jones fell 25 points, or 0.12%, the S&P 500 gained 6 points, or 0.26%, while the Nasdaq Composite traded up 35 points, or 0.59%.
Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) buoyed sentiment as shares gained more than 2% on the back of a 74% surge in quarterly profit.
IBM (NYSE:IBM), however, put a damper on risk appetite and led the Dow lower with losses of more than 5%, as the firm registered a bigger-than-expected drop in sales in what was its 20th consecutive quarter of declining revenue.
Earnings have gotten off to a positive start as, of the 57 S&P 500 companies that had reported earnings for the first quarter through Wednesday, 77% had beaten earnings forecast while 58% had topped sales estimates, according to The Earnings Scout.
American Express (NYSE:AXP), eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY), Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) and CSX (NASDAQ:CSX) report after the close.
In a light session for economic data, market players looked ahead to the publication of the Beige Book at 2:00PM ET (18:00GMT) which will give a glimpse into the economic state of state of the economy in the 12 districts of the Federal Reserve (Fed).
A string of weak data recently has caused markets to no longer believe that the central bank will hike rates in June.
Instead, Fed fund futures have pushed back policy tightening bets with odds standing at just under 50% for July and clocking in at a more “respectable” 62.1% for the September meeting.
Meanwhile, oil prices turned lower on Wednesday after the Energy Information Administration reported that U.S. crude inventories fell by a less-than-expected 1.034 million barrels while gas inventories unexpectedly rose by 1.542 million.
U.S. crude futures lost 0.38% to $52.21 by 11:01AM ET (15:01GMT), while Brent oil traded down 0.36% to $54.69.