U.S. stocks reversed early gains to trade mostly lower Wednesday as fresh worries over the U.S.-China trade friction overshadowed positive results from Apple and strong labor-market data.
What are benchmarks doing?
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.26%[1] slid 83 points, or 0.3%, to 25,331. The S&P 500 SPX, -0.16%[2] shed 7 points, or 0.3%, to 2,809, but the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +0.32%[3] gained 9 points, or 0.1%, to 7,681.
What’s driving markets?
Healthy earnings and a strong economic backdrop have buttressed the overall market even as a series of jitters have knocked stocks around. According to data from S&P Dow Jones Indices, 80% of the S&P 500 stocks that have reported second-quarter earnings so far have topped profit expectations, well above the historical average of 67%.
Robust iPhone sales helped Apple Inc. AAPL, +5.17%[4] report its highest-ever revenue for the three months ending in June—typically a seasonally weak quarter for the tech giant. The results beat Wall Street expectations and Chief Executive Tim Cook provided an upbeat outlook for the coming quarter.
Shares rose 5.1%, with the stock climbing to a record. It has risen more than 18% thus far this year.
The news could help quell some fears about a deterioration in FAANGs, a quintet of stocks consisting of Facebook Inc. FB, -0.39%[5] Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, +0.45%[6] Apple, Netflix Inc. NFLX, +0.67%[7] and Google-parent Alphabet Inc. GOOG, -0.05%[8] GOOGL, +0.35%[9] These stocks have been fueling the overall market’s gains for...