U.S. equities and stock exchange traded funds ended a seven-day streak Friday as industrial giant General Electric (NYSE:GE) dragged on the broader sector.
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 0.2% lower Friday.
GE shares declined as much as 5.4% to their lowest level since October 2015 after the company revealed a nearly 60% decline in profits and lowered its 2017 profit forecast, reports Tanya Agrawal for Reuters.
The poor results weighed on the sector, with industrial companies in the S&P 500 down 0.3% Friday.
“We’ve had a good run for the last few weeks and investors are primarily digesting earnings today,” Erick Ormsby, chief executive of Alcosta Capital Management, told Reuters. “GE’s results were okay but they guided lower and that’s weighing on the market too.”
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Many are waiting on tech names to report earnings, notably big tech companies including Amazon (NasdaqGS: AMZN), Alphabet (NasdaqGS: GOOGL) and Facebook (NasdaqGS: FB) slated to reveal quarterly results next week.
The Nasdaq was off a 10-day winning streak, its best since February 2015, after closing at record levels Thursday.
“If tech earnings were to disappoint, it might finally be the thing that causes a correction, even if it’s a small one,” J.J. Kinahan, chief market strategist at TD Ameritrade, told Reuters.
According to Thomson Reuters, second quarter earnings are expected to climb 8.6%, or better than the 8% rise projected at the start of the month.
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David Lefkowitz, senior equity strategist at UBS Wealth Management Americas, said earnings figures have so far been generally solid, the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The initial read here looks pretty favorable,” Lefkowitz told the WSJ . “There are always pockets of strengths and weakness within earnings season, but overall it’s been more strength than weakness.”
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