US STOCKS-Wall Street slides as focus shifts to earnings

(For a live blog on the U.S. stock market, click LIVE/ or
type LIVE/ in a news window)
* Banks drop ahead of earnings reports this week
* Ford slides on profit warning
* Caterpillar tumbles after BofA Global Research cuts rating
* Indexes off: Dow 1.8%, S&P 1.5%, Nasdaq 0.3%

(Updates to late afternoon)
By Caroline Valetkevitch
NEW YORK, April 13 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell in subdued
trading on Monday after a strong rally last week, as U.S.
companies prepared to kick off a widely expected painful
quarterly earnings season due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The S&P banking subsector .SPXBK shed 4% with JPMorgan
Chase & Co JPM.N and Wells Fargo & Co WFC.N set to report on
Tuesday and analysts expecting a bleak outlook for the year.
US/
Earnings for S&P 500 firms are expected to tumble 10.2% in
the first quarter, compared with a Jan. 1 forecast of a 6.3%
rise, before plummeting 22.4% in the second quarter as sweeping
lockdowns halt business activity and spark furloughs.
A staggering 16 million Americans have filed for jobless
claims in the three weeks to April 4 and economists expect U.S.
unemployment spiking to Depression-era levels in coming weeks as
entire sectors shut down to try to contain the pandemic.
Helping to limit losses, Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O gained 5.3%
as the retail giant said it would hire 75,000 more people amid a
surge in demand for online orders. Volume was lighter than usual with European and other
markets still closed following Easter Sunday, but investors
"also are facing another phase for the market, and that is the
earnings season," said Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at
Prudential Financial in Newark, New Jersey.
About 16 million Americans have filed for jobless claims in
the three weeks to April 4 and economists expect U.S.
unemployment spiking to Depression-era levels in coming weeks as
entire sectors shut down to try to contain the pandemic.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI fell 432.27 points,
or 1.82%, to 23,287.1, the S&P 500 .SPX lost 42.25 points, or
1.51%, to 2,747.57 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped
23.59 points, or 0.29%, to 8,129.99.
The small-cap Russell 2000 .RUT index fell 3.5%.
The S&P 500 has recovered about 24% since hitting a
three-year low in March, powered by aggressive U.S. monetary and
fiscal stimulus and early signs of a potential peaking in U.S.
coronavirus cases, but remains about 19% below its mid-February
record high.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Monday he believed
"the worst is over" as hospitalizations appeared to be reaching
a plateau in the worst-hit U.S. state, adding that he would
announce a coordinated plan on reopening businesses.
Carnival Corp CCL.N , Royal Caribbean Cruises RCL.N and
Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings NCLH.N tumbled as the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention extended its "no sail
order" for all cruise ships. Ford Motor Co F.N shed 5.1% after the carmaker projected
quarterly adjusted loss before interest and taxes to be about
$600 million, compared with a profit of $2.4 billion a year
earlier. Caterpillar Inc CAT.N tumbled 8.7% after Bank of America
Global Research downgraded the heavy equipment maker to
"underperform".
Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a
3.28-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 2.05-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
The S&P 500 posted three new 52-week highs and no new lows;
the Nasdaq Composite recorded 13 new highs and 13 new lows.