Wall St. cuts losses as investors snap up shares

U.S. stocks cut their losses late on Tuesday and the Nasdaq briefly turned higher as investors bought back beaten-down shares, though worries about company earnings outlooks kept a lid on the market.

Shares of Caterpillar tumbled after the heavy-duty equipment maker maintained its 2018 earnings forecast, following forecast increases in the previous two quarters. 3M Co slid after cutting its full-year profit outlook.

That reignited worries over the impact of rising borrowing costs, wages and tariffs on corporate profits, and caused S&P industrial stocks to slide. The index was still down 1 percent.

But indexes were well off their lows of the day in late trading, as investors snapped up shares.

"There was a lot of early morning fear, and when the market didn`t accelerate further to the downside, you saw some people coming in to pick up some stocks," said Rick Meckler, partner, Cherry Lane Investments, a family investment office in New Vernon, New Jersey.

The day`s earnings disappointments aside, he said, technology earnings later this week could be upbeat.

"The companies that disappointed tended to be in the industrial sector, and there are a wide range of companies reporting," he said.

Technical buying at support levels at 2,700 on the S&P 500 also helped stocks to bounce back, analysts said.

At 3:31PM ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 78.75 points, or 0.31 percent, to 25,238.66, the S&P 500 lost 9.46 points, or 0.34 percent, to 2,746.42 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 15.26 points, or 0.2 percent, to 7,453.37.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 1.91-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.40-to-1 ratio favoured decliners.

The S&P 500 posted 3 new 52-week highs and 86 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 7 new highs and 373 new lows.

(This article has not been edited by Zeebiz editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)