NEW YORK, Jan 20 (AFP) - Wall Street shares drifted lower Thursday after eBay's disappointing fourth quarter earnings report heightened investor jitters about slowing corporate profits.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 14.63 points (0.14 percent) to 10,525.34 and the Nasdaq composite shed 11.71 points (0.56 percent) to 2,061.88 at 1640 GMT.
The broad-market Standard and Poor's 500 index dipped 3.75 points (0.32 percent) to 1,180.88.
After a sharp slide Wednesday, market sentiment took another hit from a disappointing earnings report from online auction giant eBay, which came up short of forecasts with a profit of 205.4 million dollars, and gave a lackluster outlook.
"Obviously eBay is weighing on sentiment," said Peter Cardillo, chief market analyst at SW Bach.
"But earnings overall have not been that bad. Most companies are showing growth and meeting expectations. The market is basically fearful of a hawkish Fed going forward."
Alfred Goldman at AG Edwards said the market has been churning to work off some of last year's gains.
"We continue to believe that it is fatigue bugging the stock market and not the fundamentals," he said.
"For example, the Beige Book yesterday painted a solid picture of the US economy but it didn't help stocks. Aside from fatigue resulting from the nine week October 25 to year-end rally, the market is also trying to come to grips with some aging characteristics of both the economy and the bull (market) ... corporate earnings growth will probably slow and interest rates will rise moderately."
Among active shares, eBay led the decliners, tumbling 18.99 or more than 18 percent to 84.06 after results from a key player in e-commerce surprised Wall Street.
Elsewhere in the sector, Yahoo fell 44 cents to 36.02 and Amazon shed 1.60 to 42.36.
Citigroup dipped 20 cents to 47.84, unable to get a lift from its 12 percent earnings rise.
AT and T shed 43 cents to 18.08 despite a sharp rise in earnings to 625 million dollars for the fourth quarter.
Delta Air Lines tumbled 54 cents, or nine percent, to 5.41 after reporting a 2.2 billion dollar loss in the latest quarter.
Ford was off 26 cents at 13.67 even after reporting it swung back into the profit column in the fourth quarter.
Auto parts maker Delphi slipped 13 cents to 7.81 after reporting a 102 million dollar provisional loss in the quarter.
Bonds dipped. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury bond climbed to 4.189 percent from 4.187 percent Wednesday and that on the 30-year bond to 4.679 percent from 4.669 percent. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.
01/20/2005 16:53 GMT - AFP