(Updates with details of afternoon trading)
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Tariffs take $1 billion bite from GM earnings, shares
tumble
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RTX down after cutting 2025 profit forecast
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S&P 500 +0.01%, Nasdaq -0.36%, Dow +0.23%
By Noel Randewich and Pranav Kashyap
July 22 (Reuters) - Wall Street shares were mixed on
Tuesday, with steep losses in General Motors ( GM ) and a gain in Tesla
as investors focused on recent and upcoming quarterly reports
and watched for signs of progress in U.S. trade discussions.
GM tumbled almost 7% after the automaker reported a $1
billion hit from tariffs to its quarterly results, adding more
fuel to investor concerns about U.S. President Donald Trump's
global trade policy. Shares of Ford Motor ( F ) lost almost 1%.
Tesla climbed 1.2% a day before its quarterly report,
while Alphabet, also reporting on Wednesday, rose
0.3%.
Optimism about heavy spending on artificial intelligence has
underpinned a rally in Wall Street's most valuable companies,
with the S&P 500 hitting a record high on Monday.
"The market is consolidating recent gains and is in a bit of
a holding pattern with some huge catalysts over the next week or
two, including the August 1 tariff deadline and a lot of
important Magnificent Seven earnings," said Ross Mayfield, an
investment strategy analyst at Baird.
Other Big Tech stocks lost ground, with Meta Platforms ( META )
down 1.3% and Microsoft ( MSFT ) dipping 0.7%.
Shares of RTX dropped 1.3% after the aerospace and
defense giant took a hit from Trump's trade war despite strong
demand for its engines and aftermarket services.
Lockheed Martin ( LMT ) tumbled 8% after its quarterly profit
plunged by about 80%.
U.S. trade policy remains a major point of uncertainty for
investors and companies as Trump's self-imposed August 1
deadline for many countries to reach agreements with the White
House approaches.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he would meet his
Chinese counterpart next week to discuss an extension to the
August 12 deadline set for tariffs on imports from China.
Other trade negotiations appeared stalled, with optimism for a
breakthrough deal with India waning and EU officials weighing
countermeasures against the United States.
The S&P 500 was up 0.01% at 6,306.28 points.
The Nasdaq declined 0.36% to 20,898.66 points, while the Dow
Jones Industrial Average was up 0.23% at 44,425.88 points.
Nine of the 11 S&P 500 sector indexes rose, led by
healthcare, up 1.46%, followed by a 1.29% gain in real
estate.
Philip Morris ( PM ) slumped 7.3% after reporting second-quarter
revenue below expectations, as shipments of its ZYN nicotine
pouches disappointed investors.
Analysts on average expected S&P 500 companies to report a
7% increase in earnings for the second quarter, with technology
heavyweights driving much of that gain, according to LSEG
I/B/E/S.
After last week's mixed economic data, traders have all but
ruled out an interest-rate cut from the U.S. Federal Reserve at
next week's policy meeting. They now see about a 60% chance of a
reduction in September, according to the CME's FedWatch tool.
Advancing issues outnumbered falling ones within the S&P 500
by a 3.8-to-one ratio.
The S&P 500 posted 17 new highs and one new low; the Nasdaq
recorded 55 new highs and 39 new lows.