“People are a little tentative that the outperformance may not continue in earnings season, which thus far has been quite a bit better than expected. Granted the bar was low,” said Randy Frederick, managing director, trading and derivatives at Charles Schwab in Austin, Texas.
Among the S&P 500’s 11 major sectors, energy was the strongest, rising 1.5 percent, while technology was the weakest, down 0.4 percent. Of the 90 S&P 500 companies that have reported first-quarter results so far, nearly 77 percent have topped analysts’ estimates compared with the long-term average beat rate of 66 percent, as per Refinitiv IBES data.Early readings of first-quarter U.S. GDP, personal consumer expenditure index for March, and April consumer confidence are among the data scheduled for release this week.
Amazon fell 0.7 percent while Meta pared earlier losses to close off just 0.04 percent. Google’s parent Alphabet managed a 0.5-percent gain. AT&T Inc, which reported disappointing results on Thursday, deepened last week’s losses with a 3.8 percent drop on Monday. After closing up 12.2 percent, First Republic Bank shares lost ground in after-the-bell trading following the closely watched regional bank’s quarterly report, which showed its deposits fell 41% in the first quarter.