Amazon led decliners in premarket trading, plunging 13% after the company reported weaker-than-expected quarterly sales and issued a disappointing fourth-quarter revenue forecast.
Futures tied to the Nasdaq slipped 1%, Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were 0.1% lower and S&P 500 futures lost 0.6%.
Apple shares also initially fell in extended trading after the company reported weaker-than-expected iPhone sales, but then turned higher and were last up about 0.7%.The company beat Wall Street estimates for quarterly profit and revenue.
Tech names were once again a dark cloud over the market Thursday. The Nasdaq Composite lost 1.6% as Meta and other tech stocks slid following disappointing results from Facebook’s parent company. The Dow, on the other hand, rose 194.17 points, or 0.6%, posting its fifth straight day of gains, driven by GDP data that pointed to easing inflation.
The stock market is fragmented this week as investors dump technology stocks and shift into cyclically sensitive stocks that will benefit if the U.S. economy can avoid a recession, following weak results and outlooks from Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta. The Dow and S&P are expected to end the week up about 3% and 1.5%, respectively. The Nasdaq Composite is expected to finish down about 1%.
Liz Young, SoFi’s head of investment strategy, said the pain investors are feeling in earnings is inevitable and necessary to move forward in the current cycle.
“We’ve been waiting for this,” she said on CNBC’s Closing Bell: Overtime. “Normally, there’s a sequence of events: First the market goes down, then earnings go down, then the economy goes down. This is finally the time for earnings to take a hit, and I don’t think it’s a mistake that the tech industry has been hit the hardest. The technology industry has been under pressure in the market from the beginning.
“This is just another item on the list of things we need to check off before we can really complete this part of the cycle,” she added. Friday will be a quieter day for earnings. While investors digest the carnage in the technology sector, Chevron and Exxon Mobil, as well as AbbVie and Colgate-Palmolive, are on the docket before the bell.