Wall St. slips on earnings; Procter jumps

By Rodrigo Campos

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks slipped from two-week highs on Tuesday as results and outlooks from companies in various sectors, including housing and consumer products, failed to live up to expectations.

Whirlpool cited soft demand as it posted lower-than- expected earnings and gave an underwhelming guidance, while Sherwin Williams' outlook was also a disappointment for Wall Street, an indication to some analysts that the housing sector may be cooling.

"Lacklustre results from Whirlpool and Sherwin Williams may indicate a slowing in the housing cycle," said Kim Forrest, senior equity research analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh.

She said those results could be weighing on Home Depot , which was down 3.3 percent at $123.60 as the largest points decliner on the S&P 500.

 

3M fell 3 percent to $166.14 after the maker of Scotch tape and Post-it notes trimmed its full-year revenue and earnings forecasts for the second time.

But overall, annualised third-quarter earnings from S&P 500 companies are expected to have risen 1.7 percent, effectively putting an end to an earnings recession, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Of the 150 companies that have reported so far, 75.3 percent have beaten analyst expectations, above the long-term average of 63.5 percent.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> was off 45.71 points, or 0.25 percent, to 18,177.32, the S&P 500 <.SPX> lost 7.49 points, or 0.35 percent, to 2,143.84 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> dropped 28.13 points, or 0.53 percent, to 5,281.70.

Caterpillar slipped 1.7 percent after giving a downbeat forecast, while General Motors fell 4.3 percent amid fears regarding future profits.

Consumer products company Procter & Gamble rose 3.9 percent to $87.35 after reporting a better-than-expected quarterly profit, while sportswear maker Under Armour fell 13.1 percent to $32.94 after it reported its slowest quarterly sales growth in six years.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 1.51-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 2.16-to-1 ratio favoured decliners.

The S&P 500 posted 11 new 52-week highs and 8 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 57 new highs and 71 new lows.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Dan Grebler)