By Geoffrey Smith
Investing.com -- U.S. stock markets pared early gains to trade mixed on Wednesday, as a grim preview of what will likely be the worst U.S. labor market report in history in two days' time dampened sentiment.
By 10:15 AM ET (1415 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 74 points, or 0.3%, at 23,809 points. The S&P 500 was up 0.4% but the Nasdaq Composite was up 0.2%.
The market was initially untroubled by ADP (NASDAQ:ADP)'s report that the U.S. private sector shed over 20 million jobs in April, a figure that, while grim, was roughly in line with expectations. Weekly figures suggest that the pace of job losses has eased in recent weeks.
Among the layoffs announced Wednesday were 3,700 at Uber, which will take a $20 million restructuring costs. Uber (NYSE:UBER) stock fell 1.1%, while rival Lyft (NASDAQ:LYFT) stock fell 1.8%. Both companies are ste to be sued by their home state of California for mis-classifying their drivers as contractors.
Elsewhere, the political pressure to reopen the economy from Washington received some support from St. Louis Fed President James Bullard, who told CNBC that extending lockdowns deep into the second half of the year could drive the economy into a depression, with even worse health outcomes on a national level.
Spirits were lifted by some better-than-expected results, albeit of differing quality. Wendy's (NASDAQ:WEN) stock rose 6.1% after the hamburger restaurant chain showed a smart rebound in sales since states across the country started to lift lockdown restrictions. U.S. same-store sales were down only 2.1% in the week to May 3, having been down as much as 25% in April. CVS Health (NYSE:CVS), meanwhile, rose 2.8% after reporting a sharp rise in sales and profit. It declined to raise its full-year outcome, unwilling to extrapolate from a quarter marked by frantic stockpiling at the end of March.
General Motors (NYSE:GM) also beat expectations in some key areas, notably in cash burn. Its negative cash flow of $903 million in the first quarter was substantially better than Ford's, thanks in part to decent sales of trucks. GM stock rose 7.2%.
Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS) stock eked out a 0.9% gain after posting earnings that lived down to expectations after the closing bell on Tuesday, while Beyond Meat Inc (NASDAQ:BYND) stock soared 13.9% to its highest since February, after its earnings strengthened hopes that the disruption to the meat supply chain caused by the pandemic will accelerate its gains in market share. Pork and beef prices have risen sharply in recent weeks due to the closure of various meatpacking plants across the U.S., which have become hotspots for the coronavirus.