(Reuters) - The tech-heavy Nasdaq led Wall Street lower on Tuesday with a 3% slump, and the S&P 500 briefly fell 2%, as nerves ahead of earnings from megacap growth and technology companies added to concerns over slowing global growth and a more aggressive Federal Reserve.[.N]
MARKET REACTION:
* STOCKS: Dow down 1.54%, S&P 500 down 1.80%, Nasdaq down 2.89%
* BONDS: The yield on benchmark 10-year notes fell to 2.7663%. [US/]
* VIX: The VIX was up 13.8% at 30.62
COMMENTS:
TIM GHRISKEY, SENIOR PORTFOLIO STRATEGIST, INGALLS & SNYDER, NEW YORK
“We’re in a turbulent environment, you see these mini crashes and you see mini rallies. We seem to bounce up and down. It’s earnings season, obviously. The earnings so far look good to me. There have been some weaknesses, especially in some revenues. You look at JetBlue for instance. So weak revenues relative to expectations. The earnings themselves look good, look at GE, look at 3M. Good earnings, good revenues, both above expectations. But some investors may look at some of these earnings and think there may be some weaknesses.
“I haven’t heard anything else that is going on, or I don’t see anything else. So, it’s one of those perplexing days when there isn’t a really good answer for what’s going on.
“The only other thing I see is that bond yields are down. There is a little of an inversion now or more of an inversion, from the two-year out, yields are down. Anything that smells like inversion, or looks like the start of an inversion, has people worried about a recession.”
THOMAS HAYES, CHAIRMAN, GREAT HILL CAPITAL LLC, NY “There's a lot of anxiety ahead of the earnings which are coming up Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday just because if they don't hold up, then there's nothing left to hold up the market… people are just worried before results and they're trying to take some chips off the table because if they are bad earnings or bad guidance, it could take the market lower. This is going be a case of sell the rumor buy the news.”
“Of course, people have priced in a lot of low expectations. They're going into the print very, very weak, which means expectations are very low. It may be a very small hurdle to overcome, with inline or slightly better results enough to cause the next leg of the rally.”