Investing.com- Stocks in New York fell at the open Monday as weak earnings and guidance from industrial bellwether Caterpillar and chipmaker NVIDIA’s guidance spooked investors.
The Dow fell 1.36%, while the S&P 500 lost 1.12%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was down 1.52%.
Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT) stock sank 9% as the company reported worse-than-expected fourth-quarter profit and provided full-year guidance that missed consensus.
"With Caterpillar blaming China, investors are expecting to see more companies do the same in through the week," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities in New York.
"The quality of earnings so far isn't all that negative, but investors are clearly focusing more on what a company like Caterpillar would say."
Adding to woes, China data showed earnings at industrial firms shrank for a second month in December, hit by slowing prices and weak factory activity amid a protracted U.S.-China trade war.
Meanwhile, chipmaker NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA), one of the market's darlings in recent years, fell 15% after it cut its outlook for fiscal fourth-quarter sales to $2.2 billion from an earlier estimate of $2.7 billion. NVIDIA, too, pointed to weakness in China as it blamed slower sales of chips for gaming and data center platforms.
NVIDIA's shares have now lost over half their value since peaking in October.
Among other trade-related stocks, Boeing (NYSE:BA) stock fell 1.4% despite news that the U.S. Department of Defense granted the company a $2.5 billion contract for surveillance aircraft.
--Reuters contributed to this report.