US STOCKS-Wall Street slips from all-time peaks, Tesla drops after fatal crash

* Tesla falls after fatal crash, bitcoin slumps
* GameStop shares jump as CEO exits
* Coca-Cola rises as revenue beats estimates

(Adds mid-afternoon pricing)
By Herbert Lash and Medha Singh
April 19 (Reuters) - The major Wall Street indexes slid from
record levels on Monday as investors awaited solid guidance from
first-quarter earnings to justify the rich valuation equities
are trading at, while Tesla Inc TSLA.O shares fell following a
fatal car crash.
The electric-car maker was down 3.32% after a Tesla vehicle
believed to be operating without anyone in the driver's seat
crashed into a tree on Saturday north of Houston, killing two
occupants. The stock was the biggest drag on the S&P 500 .SPX and
Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC . An 8.4% drop over the weekend in
bitcoin BTC=BTSP , in which Tesla has a big investment, also
weighed on its share price.
The S&P 500 was mostly lower, with the consumer staples and
real estate sectors trading near break-even, as analysts await
results this week from 79 companies in the benchmark, including
Johnson & Johnson JNJ.N , Netflix Inc NFLX.O , Intel Corp
INTC.O , Honeywell HON.N and Schlumberger SLB.N .
Analysts expect first-quarter earnings for S&P 500 firms to
have grown 30.9% from a year ago, according to Refinitiv IBES
data.
The U.S. economy is poised to boom as consumers hold $2
trillion in savings in excess of what they held before the
pandemic, said Doug Peta, chief U.S. investment strategist at
BCA Research, adding markets are in pause mode.
"If indeed we do keep grinding higher that would be healthy,
that would suggest that the grinding higher is sustainable,"
Peta said. "The pullbacks along the way are healthy."
By 1:44 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI
fell 150.4 points, or 0.44%, to 34,050.27, the S&P 500 .SPX
lost 24.91 points, or 0.60%, to 4,160.56 and the Nasdaq
Composite .IXIC dropped 148.69 points, or 1.06%, to 13,903.66.
Coca-Cola Co KO.N rose 0.35% after the beverage maker
trounced estimates for quarterly profit and revenue, benefiting
from the easing of pandemic curbs and wide vaccine rollouts.
International Business Machines Corp IBM.N , another
blue-chip company, slipped about 0.22% ahead of its results
after market close.
"The market has had a huge jump to the upside so it needs to
take a little bit of rest," said Peter Cardillo, chief market
economist at Spartan Capital Securities in New York.
"For now it's just a little bit of profit taking as traders
await results from big tech names on Wall Street."
A recent retreat in benchmark 10-year Treasury yields
US10YT=RR from 14-month highs has renewed interest in highly
valued technology stocks, while a string of strong economic data
has also helped push the S&P 500 and the Dow to record levels.
The S&P 500 has gained the past four weeks, its longest
winning streak since August 2020.
GameStop Corp GME.N jumped 6.41% on the announcement of
its CEO's resignation. Crypto stocks including miners Riot Blockchain RIOT.O and
Marathon Digital MARA.O each slumped about 11% each as bitcoin
took a hammering. Harley-Davidson HOG.N jumped 9% after the motorcycle maker
raised it full-year forecast for sales growth. Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a
2.42-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 3.30-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
The S&P 500 posted 59 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the
Nasdaq Composite recorded 67 new highs and 81 new lows.