US open: Stocks mixed after slew of varied corporate results

US futures were mixed on Thursday following a slew of corporate results from American Airlines, BNY Mellon, Dunkin’ Donuts, Walgreen Boots Alliance and Verizon Communications as markets largely ignored the final presidential debate.

At 1515 BST, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.13% to 18,226.97 points, but the S&P 500 fell 0.01% to 2,144.10 points and the Nasdaq declined 0.08% to 5,242.24 points.

Oil prices retreated after a strong rally on Wednesday after data from the Energy Information Administration showed an unexpected 5.2m drawdown in crude inventories to 468.7m barrels last week and due to an anticipated OPEC-led production cut.

West Texas Intermediate was down 1.94% to $50.83 a barrel and Brent crude declined 2.11% at $51.58 at 1437 BST.

American Airlines’ third quarter earnings fell 56% to $737m from a year earlier as revenue decreased 1% but costs rose 5%, but the airline beat analysts’ expectations.

Shares in drugstore giant Walgreens Boots Alliance rose 4.04% after posting a mixed fourth quarter as adjusted earnings topped estimates but revenue fell unexpectedly, while it pushed back its proposed merger with Right Aid.

Adjusted earnings per share came to $1.07, exceeding estimates of $0.99. Revenue was $28.64bn, up from $28.52bn last year, but below forecasts of $29.11bn.

The company had net earnings of $1.03bn, or $0.95 a share, up from $26m or $0.02 a share.

The Bank of New York Mellon Corp’s shares rose 4.01% after it reported better-than-expected quarterly profit as it rose 18.8% due to lower costs and a rise in net interest revenue.

The bank said net income attributable to shareholders rose to $974m, or $0.90 per share, from $820m, or $0.74 last year.

Whereas shares in Dunkin' Donuts fell 2.71% as it reported mixed third-quarter results with earnings slightly topping expectations while sales dipped but store sales exceeded estimates. Revenue fell 1.3% to $207.1, the first fall in nearly four years, due to the company selling restaurants.

Verizon communication’s shares fell 2.12% as it reported third quarter adjusted earnings of $1.01 per share, beating expectations of $0.99 however, revenue fell 6.7% from last year to $30.94bn with analyst expectations of $31.07bn.

Results from Microsoft and PayPal are expected later on in the day.

Meanwhile, data from the Labor Department revealed that unemployment benefits claims rose last week after spending weeks at a four-decade low.

Jobless claims increased by 13,000 to a seasonally adjusted 260,000 for the week ended 15 October, above the 250,000 consensus.

Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said: “We think the recent run of very low claims numbers was due largely to favorable seasonals, an echo of the crash of 2008 and perhaps Hurricane Katrina in 2005. We thought it would take another week to begin to unwind but claims have mean-reverted, almost, this week.”

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia showed that manufacturing activity in the region fell to 9.7 in October from 12.8 on the index in September. Dow Jones and Bloomberg had expected a reading of seven.