U.S. stocks are falling after lackluster reports from Microsoft, Boeing

By Liz Moyer

Investing.com -- U.S. stocks are falling after lackluster results from Microsoft and Boeing stoked fears about a recession.

At 10:40 ET (15:40 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 438 points or 1.3%, while the S&P 500 was down 1.6% and the NASDAQ Composite was down 2.2%.

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) shares fell 3.2% after warning about slowing revenue in its cloud services business. That also weighed on shares of other cloud providers including Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN), which was down 3.9%.

Boeing Co (NYSE:BA) stock was also falling 3% after a surprise fourth-quarter loss attributed mostly to production delays with its 777-9. The aviation giant is trying to avoid a repeat of the 737 MAX certification issue.

Wednesday’s growth stock weakness is in contrast to earlier this month, when the sector enjoyed a rally fueled by hopes that the Federal Reserve would ease back on its aggressive interest rate hikes.

The market is expecting the Fed to raise rates by a quarter of a percentage point when it meets next week. 

Thursday will bring the latest report on initial jobless claims for the previous week. Analysts are expecting 205,000, which would be more than the previous week but still pointing to a tight labor market. A reading on fourth quarter gross domestic product is also due out in the morning on Thursday, with analysts forecasting a rise of 2.6% from the third quarter.

Oil was mixed. Crude Oil WTI Futures was up 0.3% at $80.35 a barrel, while Brent Oil Futures crude was flat at $86.14 a barrel. Gold Futures fell 0.3% to $1,929.