While you were sleeping: UPDATED US stocks stall as earnings disappoint

Equities on both sides of the Atlantic fell amid disappointing earnings from Travelers, Verizon and Nestlê.

At the Wall Street close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 40.27 points, or 0.2%, to 18,162.35, while the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 0.1% to 5241.83. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index also eased 0.1% to 2141.34.

The Dow fell as slides in shares of Travelers and those of Verizon Communications, down 5.2% and 2.7% respectively, outweighed gains by American Express and UnitedHealth, which rose 10% and 0.6% respectively.

Traveler shares slid after it reported a drop in profit, while Verizon shares fell after the company posted a decline in quarterly revenue.

On the flipside, American Express shares soared after its posted results that beat expectations and upgraded its 2016 profit outlook.

EBay declined 11%, with investors disappointed with the company’s latest quarterly result and guidance for the coming quarter.

US house sales rise
Meanwhile, a National Association of Realtors report showed that US existing home sales increased 3.2% to an annual rate of 5.47 million in September, up from a downwardly revised 5.30 million in August.

"The home search over the past several months for a lot of prospective buyers, and especially for first-time buyers, took longer than usual because of the competition for the minimal amount of homes for sale," Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said in a statement.

Most families and move-up buyers look to close before the new school year starts, Yun noted. "Their diminishing presence from the market towards the end of summer created more opportunities for aspiring first-time homeowners to buy last month."

In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index ended the day with a gain of less than 0.1%. The UK's FTSE 100 Index rose 0.1%, France's CAC 40 Index gained 0.4%, while Germany's DAX Index added 0.5%.

Euro continues to weaken
The euro weakened, touching its lowest level against the US dollar in four months, after European Central Bank President Mario Draghi pushed back a decision on whether to extend or taper its asset purchase programme until December.

"Because of what Mr Draghi didn't convey, markets are starting to question how committed the ECB is to extending its current asset-purchase programme beyond 2017," Valentin Marinov, head of Group-of-10 currency strategy at Credit Agricole's corporate and investment-banking unit in London, told Bloomberg.

Switzerland's Nestlê closed 0.8% lower in Zurich after the company downgraded its full-year sales outlook

"For the full year 2016, considering the current softer environment, we expect organic growth of around 3.5 percent, improvements in margins and underlying earnings per share in constant currencies, and increased capital efficiency," chief executive Paul Bulcke said in a statement.

The company previously forecast full-year revenue would increase about 4.2%.

"We are making progress in addressing our challenges and driving our different initiatives amidst a generally softer trading environment," Mr Bulcke noted.

(BusinessDesk)