Stocks closed little changed on Tuesday as market participants reacted to the latest batch of first-quarter earnings reports. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped about 10 points, while the S&P 500 Index added 0.08% and the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.04%.
Here's how the market settled on Tuesday:
S&P 500 Index (SPY ): +0.08% or +3.44 points to 4,154.76
Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA ): -0.03% or -10.65 points to 33,976.53
Nasdaq Composite Index (QQQ ): -0.04% or -4.31 points to 12,153.41
The first-quarter earnings season was on the forefront of Wall Street news on Tuesday, with companies like Bank of America (BAC ) and Goldman Sachs (GS ) under the spotlight. Bank of America topped earnings expectations on both top and bottom lines, benefiting from higher interest rates boosting the bank's net interest income by 25% to $14.4 billion in the first-quarter. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs shares fell after the Dow member missed on quarterly revenue estimates, impacted by a $470 million hit tied to the sale of consumer loans in its Marcus unit.
Separate Dow member Johnson & Johnson (JNJ ) posted better-than-expected Q1 earnings and revenue and raised its full-year adjusted earnings forecast to a range of $10.60 to $10.70 a share. CEO Joaquin Duato noted "strong performance" across all the drug and consumer products giant's three business segments.
Other notable earnings on Tuesday included Lockheed Martin (LMT ), which posted better-than-expected Q1 results and reaffirmed its full-year guidance for EPS and revenue, and Bank of New York Mellon (BK ), which best Q1 profit estimates as higher interest rates boosted the lender's interest income.
In economic news, U.S. housing starts for single family homes fell 0.8% to a 1.42 million annualized rate in March, according to data from the Commerce Department, down from the previous month's rate of 1.45 million. Permits to build also fell 8.8% to 1.41 million, which was also down from February's print of 1.55 million.
In single-stock news, Nvidia (NVDA ) shares rose on Tuesday after HSBC (HSBC ) double-upgraded the semiconductor's stock to buy from reduce and raised its price target to $355 from $175, impling an upside of 31.5% over Monday's close.
Frank Lee, head of technology research in Asia for HSBC, said in a note to clients on Tuesday that Nvidia's pricing power within its artificial intelligence business has not yet been fully realized and believes, "there's more earnings upside vs market expectations in FY24 and beyond."
Southwest Airlines (LUV ) shares fell after the airline said it has paused all departing flights due to technical issues. More than 1,700 flights, or 41% of the carrier's scheduled flights, where delayed as of late Tuesday morning, according to FlightAware. Southwest has since resumed operations.
Looking ahead, market participants will focus on earnings reports from Netflix (NFLX ) and United Airlines (UAL ) after closing bell on Tuesday.
