By Yasin Ebrahim
Investing.com – The Dow closed above session lows Wednesday as investors jumped into beaten-down tech stocks following an intraday selloff, though sentiment remained fragile after U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin dented hopes for further stimulus before the election.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.58%, or 165 points. The S&P 500 was down 0.66%, while the Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.80% after falling more than 2% intraday.
Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN), Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), which collectively make up a quarter of the weighting of the S&P 500, closed above session lows as investors seemingly bought the dip in the Fab 5 stocks.
Apple swung between gains and losses but closed flat; a day earlier it unveiled its new slate of iPhones. Some analysts said iPhone sales are likely to only gather pace in at the start of next year amid delays in shipping.
"We anticipate sustained double-digit growth for all hardware products except iPhones during Q4/F20 due to a slight delay in shipping new iPhones in addition to difficult comps in the year-ago period," Canaccord Genuity said in a note. "Starting in the first quarter of 2021, we believe Apple is well-positioned to benefit from the 5G upgrade cycle and anticipate strong iPhone growth."
Stimulus hopes suffered a blow as Mnuchin said it would be "would be difficult" to reach a deal on the next round of coronavirus stimulus with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi before the Nov. 3rd election.
The stalled progress on talks come as the White House's improved $1.8 trillion stimulus proposal was deemed insufficient by Pelosi, while Senate Republicans were uneasy about the size of the deal.
Some sectors of the market tied to the progress of the economy, however, sidestepped the malaise, with materials, energy, and industrials ending in the green.
Energy was helped by a 2% rise in oil prices even as crude demand concerns continue to linger, a day ahead of the U.S. weekly petroleum report.
The quarterly earnings season continued to gather pace, meanwhile, with Wall Street banks in the spotlight for the second day in a row.
Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE:GS) reported quarterly results that topped consensus estimates to trade 1% higher, but Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) and Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) reported mixed performance, sending their shares down more than 5% and 6% respectively.
UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:UNH) fell more than 3% even as it reported better-than-expected second-quarter earnings of $3.51 a share on revenue of $65.12 billion.
In other news, AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc (NYSE:AMC) fell 16% after Bloomberg News reported the cash-strapped was mulling its options, including a potential bankruptcy filing.