Microvast Holdings announces departure of chief financial officer
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* Facebook slides on warning of slowing revenue growth
* Tesla jumps after second straight quarterly profit
* Dow up 0.43%, S&P 500 up 0.31%, Nasdaq up 0.26%
(New throughout, updates prices, market activity and comments
to market close)
By Chuck Mikolajczak
NEW YORK, Jan 30 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rebounded late to
close higher on Thursday after the World Health Organization
(WHO) declared the China coronavirus a global emergency, while
earnings painted a mixed picture.
After the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
reported the first U.S. incident of person-to-person spread of
the virus, the WHO said recent weeks have seen an unprecedented
outbreak, met by an unprecedented response. It said it was not
recommending limiting trade or travel to China.
"The market is starting to look at this and say at some
point in time this will crest and the news will start getting
better," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at National
Securities in New York.
"Precautions are being taken and that means at some point
there will be light at the end of the tunnel, that is when the
market reacts constructively."
Facebook FB.O shares slumped 6.14% after the social media
company warned of slowing growth as its business matured and it
reported a surge in quarterly expenses. The decline weighed on the S&P communication services index
.SPLRCL , which lost 0.79%. Defensive sectors such as utilities
and consumer staples, considered safer in times of economic
uncertainties, advanced.
The main U.S. stock indexes are on course for their second
straight week of declines as the virus has disrupted global
travel and forced several companies to suspend operations in
China.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 124.99 points,
or 0.43%, to 28,859.44, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 10.26 points,
or 0.31%, to 3,283.66 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added
23.77 points, or 0.26%, to 9,298.93.
Earnings expectations have been slowly improving for S&P 500
companies, with Refinitiv data showing a 0.7% rise in
fourth-quarter profit, compared with a 0.6% decline estimated at
the start of the season.
Microsoft Corp MSFT.O gained 2.82% after it beat
expectations for quarterly earnings, driven by Azure cloud
computing revenue growth. Tesla Inc TSLA.O jumped 10.30% after the maker of electric
cars posted a second straight quarterly profit as vehicle
deliveries hit a record. Altria Inc MO.N slid 4.21% after the tobacco company said
it took another $4 billion charge on its investment in Juul Labs
Inc. Package delivery firm United Parcel Service Inc UPS.N
dropped 6.70% after it forecast full-year earnings below
estimates.
After the close, Amazon AMZN.O gained 10% after
fourth-quarter revenue topped expectations. Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a
1.01-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.32-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
The S&P 500 posted 48 new 52-week highs and 14 new lows; the
Nasdaq Composite recorded 57 new highs and 94 new lows.
About 7.72 billion shares changed hands in U.S. exchanges,
compared with the 7.54 billion daily average over the last 20
sessions.