Wall St turn positive after weak start as tech rebounds

By Abhiram Nandakumar

(Reuters) - Wall Street eked out small gains in early trading on Tuesday, easing off a lower opening, as a drop in energy and financial stocks was offset by a rebound in the technology sector.

Six of the 10 major S&P sectors were lower, led by a 0.9 percent rise in the technology sector.

Facebook and Alphabet were both up about 2 percent. Microsoft was up 1.2 percent. The stocks, all of which fell heavily in the past two days, were giving the biggest boost to the S&P and the Nasdaq.

U.S. stocks have taken a beating for the better part of this year on increasing concerns of a sustained slowdown in global economic growth and falling oil prices.

Global markets were also lower on Tuesday, again led by a fall in European bank stocks.

"The general thematic continues to be the European banking situation that has unhinged the risk market and slowly crept into the credit markets," said Chad Morganlander, portfolio manager at Stifel, Nicolaus & Co in Florham Park, New Jersey.

At 10:06 a.m. ET the Dow Jones industrial average was down 16.75 points, or 0.1 percent, at 16,010.3.

The S&P 500 was up 2.71 points, or 0.15 percent, at 1,856.15 and the Nasdaq Composite index was up 28.98 points, or 0.68 percent, at 4,312.73.

The energy sector was the biggest decliner among the 10 S&P sectors as crude oil prices gave up early gains.

The financial sector has taken the biggest beating this year, falling 15 percent as recession fears compounded concern about their exposure to the energy sector and expectations that global interest rates are unlikely to rise quickly.

Viacom tumbled 11 percent to $37.16 after its revenue missed estimates.

Regeneron Pharma fell 7.3 percent to $363.89 after it forecast slowing sales growth for its blockbuster eye drug.

Disney and Tesla were off 3 percent ahead of their results due after the bell.

(Reporting by Aastha Agnihotri and Abhiram Nandakumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza)