After seven successive days of heading north, stocks have paused for breath.
The Dow Jones industrial average was up down 10 points at 17,122 and the Nasdaq Composite was 14 points offside at 4,824, while the S&P 500 was down seven points at 2,011.
There has not been much in the way of US economic data for investors to get their teeth into, and the news from overseas was discouraging.
Data showed China's imports falling about a fifth, down for the 11th month in a row. The drop, the steepest in almost three years, cast more doubt over the health of Asia's economic powerhouse.
September imports dipped by a bigger-than-expected 17.7% in yuan-denominated terms, while exports fell 1.1% from a year earlier, according to official figures.
Closer to home, St Louis Federal Reserve president James Bullard, who is set to move on to the Fed’s policy making board next year, said he believed the Fed should gradually raise interest rates.
Among blue-chips, Molson Coors (NYSE:TAP, TSE:TPX.A) was wanted after Anheuser-Busch InBev (NYSE:BUD) finally made an offer London-listed SABMiller (LON:SAB) would accept.
Molson’s shares were up 9.3% in New York trading as speculators moved in.
Rider Systems (NYSE:R) tumbled 8.2% to US$69.45 after it revised its earnings outlook after the markets closed yesterday. The company’s Fleet Management Solutions arm is not performing up to scratch, though the company reckons the problems are temporary and will be ironed out in the fourth quarter.
Healthcare leviathan Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) found the market hard to please, as it beat earnings expectations and raised its outlook for the year.
Post-tax profit came in at US$3.36bn, down from US$4.75bn the year before, on sales of US$17.1bn, down 7.4% year-on-year and below the market consensus forecast of US$17.5bn.
Adjusted earnings per share of US$1.49 topped market expectations of US$1.43, but the shares were down 14 cents at US$95.87, despite the company unveiling a monster US$10bn share repurchase program.
“Those results didn’t bode well for the rest of the index’s components, with the strong dollar reducing the consumer giant’s revenue by 8.2% to $17.1 billion,” opined Connor Campbell, a financial analyst at spread betting firm Spreadex.
Humana (NYSE:HUM), a health and well-being company, reaffirmed its guidance for the third quarter and the full year, perking up the shares a little; they traded at US$184, up 1.4%.
In contrast, FMC (NYSE:FMC) shares have come under pressure after the chemicals company reduced its Agricultural Solutions business unit’s earnings guidance for the third quarter and the year as a whole to take into account the decline in value of the Brazilian currency, the real.
The shares were off 4.1% at US$35.99.
Companies reporting after the bell today include computer chip giant Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) and investment banking behemoth JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM).