By Yasin Ebrahim
Investing.com -- The S&P 500 slipped Thursday, as a Meta-led slump in big tech offset a jump in cyclical sectors including industrials and energy stocks.
The S&P 500 fell 0.33%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.90% or 288 points, the Nasdaq was down 1.4%.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) fell nearly 25% after reporting third-quarter results that missed on the bottom line and were an “absolute train wreck,” Wedbush said in a note.
The results reflect the “pervasive digital advertising doldrums ahead for Zuckerberg & Co. as they make the risky and head scratching bet on the metaverse,” it added.
Meta’s results arrived just a day after Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) reported underwhelming quarterly results. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) close the curtain on big tech earnings this week, with reports after market closes.
Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT), however, provided plenty of optimism for investors after reporting better-than-expected quarterly results as price hikes and higher sales volume bolster the heavy equipment company’s growth.
Honeywell International (NASDAQ:HON), another industrial heavyweight, also delivered a beat on the bottom line, sending its shares 4% higher.
Boeing (NYSE:BA) jumped more than 4%, recovering some losses from a day earlier, when the aircraft maker reported a bigger than expected loss.
McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE:MCD), a major Dow component, was up about 3% underpinned by better-than-expected quarterly results amid rising customer traffic.
Energy stocks were driven more than 1% higher by rising oil prices, with Marathon Oil (NYSE:MRO), Baker Hughes (NASDAQ:BKR) and Valero Energy (NYSE:VLO) leading to the upside.
On the economic front, meanwhile, the U.S. economy rebounded in the third quarter, growing at a 2.6% annualized rate, driven by a jump in exports though this is unlikely to persist given the stronger dollar, RBC said.
[W]ith the Fed hiking interest rates “aggressively,” RBC expects, GDP growth to “slow in Q4 and a recession to follow next year.”
Treasury yields, however, continued to their retreat from recent highs with the 10-year Treasury yield slipping below 4% as investors continue to bet that the Fed is closing in on a peak level in rates.
“Over the last six hiking cycles, bond yields have typically peaked a couple of months before the peak in the Fed funds rate itself,” Oxford Economics said in a recent note.
“We are therefore likely nearing a peak in yields, which we expect to be around 4% at the end of this year.”