Apple stalls Wall Street's record run

By Sruthi Shankar

REUTERS - Wall Street pulled back from record highs on Thursday with Apple leading a decline in technology stocks and a bunch of weak corporate results adding to the dour mood.

Apple fell as much 2.8 percent as signs of poor demand for iPhone 8 raised doubts about the company's double 2017 iPhone release strategy.

The other high-flying FAANG stocks - Amazon, Facebook, Alphabet and Netflix - were down between 0.86 percent and 1.03 percent.

"Apple has its impact across the board," said Phil Blancato, head of Ladenburg Thalmann Asset Management in New York.

"The marketing plan here was not a lot to be desired, considering you have two phones and the next one is just two weeks away from release. If it's going to be a significant upgrade, it did not make any sense to me."

There is also profit-taking in the tech sector, Blancato said. Technology sector has had a strong run so far, gaining more than 30 percent and helping the three major indexes scale record highs.

At 11:07 a.m. ET (1507 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 44.33 points, or 0.19 percent, at 23,113.27, the S&P 500 was down 5.07 points, or 0.19 percent, at 2,556.19 and the Nasdaq Composite was down 34.78 points, or 0.53 percent, at 6,589.44.

The retreat from record levels comes on a day that marks the 30th anniversary of the 1987 Black Monday stock market crash.

Six of the 11 major S&P indexes were lower, with gains mostly in the defensive utilities, telecoms sectors. Healthcare stocks also gained, boosted by a 5.8 percent rise in the shares of medical equipment maker Danaher.

Verizon's 2.45 percent rise on strong quarterly earnings lifted telecom stocks, including AT&T.

The financial index dropped 0.46 percent, led by losses in Bank of New York Mellon and KeyCorp.

United Airlines sank 5.12 percent, weighing on other airlines stocks and the Dow Jones Transport index, after the third largest U.S. carrier's profit fell due to flight cancellations during the hurricane season.

Among the few gainers in the tech sector was Adobe, which jumped more than 9 percent after the Photoshop maker gave a strong 2018 profit forecast.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers on the NYSE by 1,723 to 1,015. On the Nasdaq, 1,861 issues fell and 838 advanced.

(Reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza and Arun Koyyur)