Stocks end mixed after another wobbly day on Wall Street

NEW YORK— Stocks on Wall Street managed only meager gains Wednesday, after a broad rally led by technology companies faded by late afternoon, leaving the market little changed a day after a big sell-off.

The lackluster finish punctuated a wobbly start for stocks, the latest turbulence for the market as traders brace for more earnings reports from major U.S. companies this week.

The S&P 500 saw most of a midday rally evaporate and wound up with a gain of just 0.2 percent. The Nasdaq ended just barely in the red after the tech stock rebound petered out. The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 0.2 percent.

The indexes rallied to a strong finish late Monday only to slump on Tuesday. They are all down 1.5 percent or more so far this week.

“We're kind of in this time period where we're in front of the Fed, earnings are OK, but the forward look at just how sustainable earnings growth might be, those are certainly open questions for people in this environment,“said Eric Freedman, chief invesment officer at U.S. Bank Asset Management Group.

The S&P 500 rose 8.76 points to 4,183.96, while the Dow added 61.75 points to 33,301.93. The Nasdaq slipped 1.81 points to 12,488.93.

Smaller company stocks lost ground. The Russell 2000 fell 6.44 points, or 0.3 percent, to 1,884.04.

Investors reviewed the latest batch of company earnings Wednesday, including results from several big technology and communications companies.

Software giant Microsoft rose 4.8 percent after reporting strong profits for its most recent quarter. Payments processing giant Visa jumped 6.5 percent after reporting a surge in profits fueled by a large jump in spending on the company's namesake credit and debit card network.

Alphabet, Google's parent company, fell 3.7 percent, after posting its slowest quarterly revenue growth since 2020. Facebook's parent company, Meta Platforms, jumped 14.6 percent in after-hours trading following its latest quarterly earnings, which topped Wall Street's estimates.

Investors were also focused on earnings from industrial companies and various retailers. Boeing slumped 7.5 percent after it reported a loss that was far worse than Wall Street expected. Chipotle rose 2.6 percent after reporting solid financial results.

Twitter, Apple and Amazon will report their results on Thursday.