Stocks took a nasty fall on Wednesday, with Wal-Mart hit hardest after warning the strength of the dollar would hit profits.
Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) lost a tenth of its value, driving the Dow Jones industrial average down 157 points, or 0.9%, to 16,924.
The broader-based S&P 500 fell nine points (0.5%) to 1,994 while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite shed 14 points, or 1.6%, at 4,783.
Sentiment was further soured by the release of the Fed's Beige Book survey, which was not long on optimism about the immediate prospects for the US economy.
A slew of trading updates from banking heavyweights gave investors something to chew over, taking their minds off the slumping stock market.
Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) slipped 0.7% to US$51.50 after eking out a small year-on-year gain in profit and splashing out an undisclosed sum on three General Electric (NYSE:GE) units focused on business loans and equipment financing.
Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) edged up 0.8% to US$15.64 as it moved back into the black in the third quarter. It does help when there is no need to pay massive settlements to the Department of Justice for past transgressions; costs tumbled to US$13.81bn from $230.14bn in the third quarter of last year, reflecting lower spending on legal fees, contributing to a US$4.51bn net profit, versus a loss of US$232mln the year before.
JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM), which had released its numbers after the bell on Tuesday, fell 2.5% to US$59.99, with even its own boss damning the figures with faint praise.
Chief executive and chairman Jamie Dimon said they were “decent results” but Wall Street begged to differ.
Bid speculation continues to keep the mergers & acquisitions teams at investment banks interested, with camera storage specialist SanDisk (NASDAQ:SNDK) hoisting the “for sale” sign, prompting an 11.2% mark-up in the share price.
Computer memory leader Micron (NASDAQ:MU), up 3.5%, and hard disk colossus Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC), down 1.4%, were said to be in talks with SanDisk.