US stocks end flat as 4Q growth disappoints

Wall Street stocks finished little changed Friday following a lackluster US fourth-quarter growth report and some high-profile earnings disappointments from Chevron, Google parent Alphabet and others.

Analysts said the market was still digesting gains from earlier in the week, including the Dow's surge Wednesday above 20,000 points.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended down less than 0.1 percent at 20,093.78.

The broad-based S&P 500 dropped 0.1 percent to 2,294.69, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.1 percent to 5,660.78.

US growth came in at a sluggish 1.9 percent in the quarter ending December 31, well below the 3.5 percent in the third quarter and under analyst expectations.

Chevron was the biggest loser in the Dow, shedding 2.4 percent as it reported fourth-quarter earnings of 22 cents share, well below the 64 cents expected by analysts.

Google parent Alphabet lost 1.1 percent after fourth-quarter earnings rose eight percent to $5.3 billion, although it missed expectations.

Starbucks also disappointed the market, slumping 4.1 percent after its US comparable sales rose by three percent in the fourth quarter, below the level set by many analysts.

Others that fell after reporting earnings included American Airlines, which dropped 5.2 percent, Colgate-Palmolive, which shed 5.3 percent, and PayPal, which dropped 3.0.

Microsoft gained 2.3 percent as it reported a 3.6 percent rise in second-quarter profit to $5.2 billion behind gains in cloud computing and other new areas of focus. 

source: AFP