Investing.com - Wall Street opened lower on Thursday as disappointing earnings weighed on sentiment.
At 9:32AM ET (13:32GMT), the Dow Jones fell 126 points, or 0.53%, the S&P 500 lost 15 points, or 0.56%, while the Nasdaq Composite traded down 34 points, or 0.48%.
Even though first quarter earnings are showing the best profit growth since 2010, the reports since after Wednesday’s close have been casting a shadow on investor sentiment.
Capturing most headlines was the 7% plunge in shares of Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) after Chief Executive Elon Musk cut off analysts asking about profit potential in the company's first-quarter's earnings call.
Spotify (NYSE:SPOT) tumbled around 7% Thursday. Its first earnings report since going public last month showed a smaller than expected loss but revenue fell short and guidance disappointed.
Square (NYSE:SQ)'s stock also sank around 9% after the financial services and mobile payment company's weak earnings guidance disappointed investors.
AIG (NYSE:AIG) was also under pressure Thursday, trading around 8% lower after the insurer reported a lower-than-expected quarterly profit.
Not all earnings news negative however as Teva (NYSE:TEVA) jumped around 3% after beating on the top and bottom line.
DuPont (NYSE:DWDP) also managed to trade around 1% higher as the Dow component also topped consensus.
On the economic front, weekly initial jobless claims rose less than feared, while continuing jobless claims, which measures the number of people still receiving benefits after an initial week of aid, dropped to their lowest level since December 1973.
Still ahead, a survey on service sector activity, and a report on factory orders are due at 10:00AM ET (14:00GMT).
Meanwhile, two days of tense U.S.-China trade talks between U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He began Thursday in Beijing.
The talks are taking place after President Donald Trump proposed new tariffs on Chinese goods and Beijing responded with a set of duties that could potentially apply to U.S. products too.
Any breakthrough deal during the two days of negotiations is viewed as highly unlikely.