Stock Market Today: Dow Climbs as Caterpillar, Boeing Rally Offset Meta Meltdown

By Yasin Ebrahim

Investing.com -- The Dow closed higher Thursday, as a rally in Caterpillar and Boeing cushioned the rout in tech after META delivered disappointing quarterly results. 

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.61% or 194 points, the Nasdaq was down 1.6% and the S&P 500 fell 0.55%.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) fell nearly 25% after reporting third-quarter results that missed on the bottom line and were an “absolute train wreck,” Wedbush said in a note. The results reflect the “pervasive digital advertising doldrums ahead for Zuckerberg&Co. as they make the risky and head scratching bet on the metaverse,” it added.

Meta’s results arrived just a day after Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) reported underwhelming quarterly results. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) close the curtain on big tech earnings this week, with reports after market closes.

Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT), however, provided plenty of optimism for investors after reporting better-than-expected quarterly results as price hikes and higher sales volume bolster the heavy equipment company’s growth.  

Honeywell International (NASDAQ:HON), another industrial heavyweight, also delivered a beat on the bottom line, sending its shares more than 3% higher.

Boeing (NYSE:BA) gained 4.5%, recovering some losses from a day earlier, when the aircraft maker reported a bigger than expected loss.

McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE:MCD), a major Dow component, was up about 3% underpinned by better-than-expected quarterly results amid rising customer traffic.

Energy stocks were driven more than 1% higher by rising oil prices, with Marathon Oil (NYSE:MRO), Baker Hughes (NASDAQ:BKR) and Valero Energy (NYSE:VLO) leading to the upside.

On the economic front, meanwhile, the U.S. economy rebounded in the third quarter, growing at a 2.6% annualized rate, driven by a jump in exports though this is unlikely to persist given the stronger dollar, RBC said.

[W]ith the Fed hiking interest rates “aggressively,” RBC expects, GDP growth to “slow in Q4 and a recession to follow next year.”

Treasury yields, however, continued to their retreat from recent highs with the 10-year Treasury yield slipping below 4% as investors continue to bet that the Fed is closing in on a peak level in rates.

“Over the last six hiking cycles, bond yields have typically peaked a couple of months before the peak in the Fed funds rate itself,” Oxford Economics said in a recent note.

“We are therefore likely nearing a peak in yields, which we expect to be around 4% at the end of this year.”