(Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks were little changed as investors assessed earnings from companies including Coach Inc., International Business Machines Corp. and Motorola Solutions Inc.
Coach, the largest U.S. luxury handbag maker, slumped 7.9 percent after sales missed analysts' estimates. IBM slid 4.6 percent as revenue declined for a seventh consecutive quarter amid weaker demand for servers. Motorola lost 2.9 percent after forecasting first-quarter profit below analyst estimates.
The Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 0.1 percent to 1,845.27 at 9:33 a.m. in New York. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 22.67 points, or 0.1 percent, to 16,391.77 today.
"Earnings are all that matters," Dan Morris, who helps oversee about $564 billion as global investment strategist at TIAA-CREF Asset Management in New York, said in a phone interview. "To see the justification for meaningful higher prices, we just need to wait for earnings to catch up and accelerate a bit and that may take a quarter or two."
