U.S. equities and stock exchange traded funds slipped on the last day of month as weak economic data weighed on the markets, despite encouraging first quarter earnings results.
The S&P 500 Index, along with related funds including the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSEArca: SPY), iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (NYSEArca: IVV) and Vanguard 500 Index (NYSEArca: VOO), were down 0.2% Friday.
Earnings continued to impress, with Chevron (NYSE: CVX) and Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM) revealing rising profits over the first quarter. Google parent Alphabet (NasdaqGS: GOOGL) and Amazon (NasdaqGS: AMZN) also helped curb losses after reporting strong results late Thursday.
Almost 300 companies in the S&P 500 have revealed earnings, with first quarter earnings on track to increase 12% year-over-year, well above the first-quarter earnings growth of 9.1% market observers previously anticipated, the Wall Street Journal reports.