US Stocks Fall On Earnings Fears, Rate Jitters

Wall Street stocks retreated on Thursday following mixed corporate earnings reports as a jump in Treasury bond yields revived worries about higher interest rates.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.3 percent to end at 24,664. The S&P 500 shed 0.6 percent to close at 2,693, while the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 0.8 percent to 7,238.

Analysts have been generally upbeat on first-quarter earnings and many companies have exceeded expectations.

But a weak outlook from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing hit investor sentiment because the company is a supplier to Apple, which fell 2.8 percent.

Analysts also cited the rise in the yield of the 10-year US Treasury bond as a concern, along with the lofty state of the equity market after gains earlier in the week.

"Many look at the market overall and suggest maybe the market is overbought again and it needs to take a breather," said Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at Prudential Annuities.

Consumer product giant Procter & Gamble, a Dow member company, lost 3.2 percent after reporting another round of lackluster earnings due in large part to pricing pressure from Amazon and other retailers. Other consumer stocks also were punished, including Clorox, which tumbled 6.0 percent, and Colgate-Palmolive and Kimberly-Clark, which shed more than two percent. (AFP)