New York: Wall Street stocks fell yesterday after weak economic growth figures for the second quarter and disappointing earnings from Merck painted an uncertain outlook for the rest of the year.
A jump in a barometer of US Midwest business in July, however, helped indexes cut some losses.
Drugmaker Merck & Co. reported a profit that beat the average analyst estimate, but its sales were less than Wall Street's forecast. The stock fell 3.3 per cent to $33.89 (Dh124.58).
The Commerce Department's gross domestic product (GDP) report, the first estimate of economic growth for the April-June period, expanded at 2.4 per cent annual rate, versus analyst's forecast of 2.5 per cent as a capital investment drive by business saw imports increasing at their fastest pace since the first quarter of 1984. US consumer sentiment plunged in July to its lowest level since November 2009 on bleak prospects for jobs and income a year since the economic recovery began, according to the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan's Surveys of Consumers.
Investors have been rattled by disappointing data, and more are talking about the possibility of a double-dip recession.