By Geoffrey Smith
Investing.com -- U.S. stock markets opened mixed in narrow ranges on Tuesday, as the market digested a host of corporate reports that pointed broadly to an ongoing economic recovery - albeit one that has been generally priced in already.
The market was kept subdued by the onset of the Federal Reserve's latest monetary policy meeting, where no change in interest rates or bond purchases is expected, but which will nonetheless have more concrete signs of recovery to digest than the last meeting did. The Conference Board said earlier its consumer confidence index rose by more than expected to its highest in over a year in April. Whether such data points will be enough to formally move the Fed's guidance is a moot point.
By 9:40 AM ET (1440 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 96 points, or 0.3%, at 33,885 points. The S&P 500 was down 0.2% and the Nasdaq Composite was down 0.1%.
Prominent among the early movers was Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) stock, which fell 2.5% after publishing record earnings after the close on Monday. The unenthusiastic reaction was down to the fact that the electric carmaker again relied on sales of regulatory emissions credits and Bitcoin holdings from its corporate treasury to generate its earnings. Operating losses widened as average selling costs fell, reflecting the higher share in the sales mix of its lower-margin Model 3 product. Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) analysts nonetheless reportedly raised their price target for the stock to $860 in response.
On a heavy day for earnings, United Parcel Service (NYSE:UPS) stood out with an 11% gain after another set of results that profited from the pandemic's electrifying effect on e-commerce and the associated demand for delivery.
Shares in commodities trader Archer-Daniels-Midland (NYSE:ADM) also rose 3.3% after the company rode a vigorous rally in agricultural products to quarterly earnings that were some 30% above forecasts. ADM reported as soybeans, wheat and corn futures all hit their highest in at least eight years, thanks to difficult growing conditions in the U.S., Brazil and Russia that threaten to weigh on this year's crops.
Away from the earnings newsbeat, GameStop (NYSE:GME) stock rose 5.7% as the short-term pressure on its stock from a large capital raising faded, while LYFT (NASDAQ:LYFT) stock rose 2.9% after the ride-hailing company agreeing to sell its self-driving unit Level 5 to Toyota for $550 million. The sale will trim $100 million a year from its operating costs, bringing profitability a little bit closer for the loss-making company.
Elsewhere, DR Horton (NYSE:DHI) stock rose another 1% after the Federal Housing Finance Agency showed house prices rising at their fastest in over 25 years in March, at an annual rate of over 12%.