Stock market today: Dow rides banks to close higher, shrugging off Google wobble

By Yasin Ebrahim

Investing.com — The Dow closed higher Monday, shrugging off a Google-led wobble in tech as banks racked up gains amid mostly upbeat quarterly earnings. 

The gained 0.3%, or 100 points, the gained 0.3%, and the  rose 0.3%.

Financials, meanwhile, gained more than 1% as banking stocks continued to roll out mostly upbeat quarterly results. 

Charles Schwab (NYSE:) rose almost 4% after reporting mixed as earnings beat but revenue fell short of expectations. The brokerage company also reported a drop in deposits and said it was pausing its share buyback program.  

M&T Bank (NYSE:) rallied more than 7% as its quarterly beat on both the top and bottom lines, while State Street Corp (NYSE:) fell 9% after its first-quarter fell short of estimates.

But a 2% slip in Alphabet (NASDAQ:) stifled upside momentum on reports that Samsung (KS:) is mulling ditching Google’s search for Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:) Bing as the default search engine on its devices, threatening about $3 billion in annual revenue, the New York Times reported. 

Apple (NASDAQ:) closed just above the flatline as the tech giant announced that it would launch a savings account for Apple card users.

Netflix (NASDAQ:) slipped more than 1% ahead of its quarterly results on Tuesday after markets close, with some on Wall Street keen for updates on the streaming giant’s crackdown on password sharing.

“We believe the key debate into the print is the impact of paid sharing on [near-term] growth,” UBS said in a recent note. “We continue to believe password sharing restrictions could provide an [mid-single digit percentage] uplift to rev (ex churn) & quickly turn accretive,” it added.

Sentiment on growth corners of the market including tech was also weighed down by a jump in Treasury amid growing fears about further Federal Reserve rate hikes.

“We continue to expect a 25 bp rate hike at the May FOMC meeting,” UBS said, adding that an unexpected pause from the Fed would likely be driven by concern “over the banking system and credit.”

The odds of a 25-basis-point rate hike at the Fed’s May 3 meeting is nearly priced in, according to Investing.com’s

Roblox (NYSE:), meanwhile, fell 12% after warning that average bookings per daily user in March, the company’s gauge of revenue, is expected to fall year over year.

In deal news, Prometheus Biosciences (NASDAQ:) jumped 70% after Merck & Company Inc (NYSE:) announced that it agreed to acquire the Biosciences company in a $10.8B deal.