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1st LD Writethru: U.S. stocks little changed amid weak retail sales

Xinhua, May 14, 2015 Adjust font size:

U.S. stocks shaved early gains to end narrowly mixed on Wednesday as U.S. retail sales came out disappointing.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 7.74 points, or 0.04 percent, to 18,060.49. The S&P 500 edged down 0.64 point, or 0.03 percent, to 2,098.48. The Nasdaq Composite Index added 5.50 points, or 0.11 percent, to 4,981.69.

U.S. Commerce Department announced Wednesday that the advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for April were 436.8 billion U.S. dollars, virtually unchanged from the previous month, missing market expectations.

"Year-over-year retail sales have been falling since the end of last year, and are now at the lowest point since October 2009. With wage growth hovering near its four-year average, consumer spending will likely disappoint for months to come," said Jay Morelock, an economist at FTN Financial, in a note.

Meanwhile, U.S. import prices declined 0.3 percent in April, after decreasing 0.2 percent in March and 0.4 percent in February, the U.S. Labor Department reported Wednesday.

Some analysts expected that that the Federal Reserve would delay interest rate hikes this year due to sluggish economic growth.

The U.S. dollar hit a more than three-month low against a basket of major currencies on the expectation on Wednesday.

Overseas, the seasonally-adjusted gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 0.4 percent in both the eurozone and the European Union during the first quarter of 2015, compared to the previous quarter, according to flash estimates published by Eurostat on Wednesday.

European equities mostly declined as the economic growth missed market consensus, with German benchmark DAX index at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange falling 1.05 percent.

In corporate news, before Wednesday's opening bell, Macy's reported earnings of 56 cents per diluted share for the first quarter of 2015, the 13-week period ended May 2, 2015, compared with earnings of 60 cents per diluted share in the first quarter of 2014, missing expectations. Its shares decreased 2.45 percent to 63.73 dollars apiece.

Ralph Lauren posted fourth quarter net revenue of 1.9 billion dollars. The fashion retailers' quarterly earnings per diluted share were 1.41 dollars, in line with the prior year excluding foreign currency impacts. Its shares dropped 3.02 percent to 129. 18 dollars apiece Wednesday.

Latest data from Thomson Reuters showed that the S&P 500 companies' blended earnings in the first quarter of 2015 are expected to increase 2.1 percent year on year, while the revenue is forecast to decrease 3.0 percent. A total of 457 companies in the S&P 500 have reported first-quarter results to date. Endite