Yahoo Finance US stocks narrowly positive; Verizon, Lockheed fall
Wall Street stocks were narrowly positive early Tuesday as earnings disappointments from Verizon, Lockheed Martin and others limited buying sentiment.
Investors remained focused on Washington, where President Donald Trump was meeting with leaders of the "Big 3" US automakers as part of his campaign to steer more manufacturing onshore. Ford, General Motors and Fiat Chrysler were all higher.
About 20 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was at 19,811.33, up 0.1 percent.
The broad-based S&P 500 also added 0.1 percent at 2,268.30, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.2 percent to 5,564.75.
Defense contractor Lockheed Martin, which has been criticized by Trump over the high costs of its F-35 fighter, lost 2.9 percent after it forecast annual earnings of $12.25 to $12.55 per share, well below the $12.87 per share expected by the market.
Verizon lost 3.7 percent after it reported lower-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings and said it was pushing back the target date for its $4.8 billion acquisition of core Yahoo assets following a pair of large data hack disclosed by Yahoo.
Among other companies reporting results, 3M lost 1.8 percent, Johnson & Johnson fell 1.6 percent and DuPont rose 2.6 percent.
"The results in aggregate have been okay, yet they have lacked a gangbuster quality that some thought would be the norm based on rising levels of consumer confidence, and a pickup in wage growth, in the fourth quarter," said Briefing.com analyst Patrick O'Hare.
